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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



DNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 

BEING A SERIES OF SKETCHES 
WRITTEN AND DRAWN BY 



JOSEPH PENNELL 

AND 

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 
1892 

^ SEP 19 1892 



Copyright, 1891, 1892, by 
The Century Co. 



THE DEVINNE PRESS. 



TO 

HARRIET WATERS PRESTON 
WHO WAS THE FIRST TO TURN OUR ATTENTION, AS 
WELL AS THAT OF ALL OTHER ENGLISH-SPEAKING 
PEOPLE, TO THE COUNTRY OF MIREIO, WE OFFER OUR 

IMPRESSIONS OF PROVENCE 





INTRODUCTION 



PAGE 
17 



II 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



47 



III 



LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 65 



IV 



THE FERRADE 89 



V 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE . 105 



VI 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 139 



VII 



THE MARIES' STORY . 167 



VIII 



THE MARIES' FEAST 



PAGE 



IX 



LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 



195 



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INTRODUCTION 



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Our Oivn Glad Kingdom of P7'ovence. 

THEN I first read "Mireio," many years 
ago, in Miss Preston's translation, I 
thought it but a midsummer day-dream of 
the Provengal poet. But when together we 

went to Provence, J and I, the hfe of its 

people seemed no less an idyl ; and every- 
where, in town and country, on hills of Baux 
or desolate Crau plain, as in the fair, large 
city of Aries, — Aries le Blanc, — we found 
Mistral's poem. 

From Aries to Vence, 
From Vanensolo even to Marseilles, 

we were always in Mistral's world. 

We saw there much of earlier ages: "the 
antiquities," as Mireio called them when her 
shepherd-lover wooed her — as every Pro- 



17 



i8 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

vengal speaks of them to-day — memories of 
the old Provence where temples and amphi- 
theaters arose in strength and beauty while 
the greater part of Gaul was still barbaric ; 
Avignon's papal palace, " knowing no rival," 
whither came Nerto to save the Pope from 
the heretic, herself from the devil, where all 
western Christianity was once at stake ; 
Baux, and the '' rock where lie its ancient 
ruins low," once sweet with viol and flute 
of troubadours, whose names in Esterelle's 
mouth were sweeter music to Calendal. But 
are not these too in Mistral ? 

In the Provengal to-day, in his play and 
work, the past still lives. He is Greek and 
Roman in his beauty and his joyousness. 
The ancient arena now is the background 
for the modern bull-fight, the medieval forti- 
fied church, the goal of the modern pilgrim- 
age. It is for the tournament, born of the 
middle-age, that the wide lake divides the 
olive-gardens; for the Bacchanalia of the fer- 
rade that the plain stretches a vast level 
to sea and sky ; and not a narrow, awning- 
shaded street, not a blinding white road be- 
tween sycamores but was designed for the 
long line of t\\^ fai^andoie, that classic dance 



INTRODUCTION 



19 



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2; 




20 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

first led by Greeks about the altars of their 
gods, and then by Christians through Mar- 
seilles streets to the greater glory of Saint 
Lazarus. And because of the sports in the 
Roman arena, because of the orgy in the 



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REMAINS OF A ROMAN THEATER, ARLES. 

Plains of Meyran, because of the tilting in 
the Etang de Berre, the past is more real, 
while the spell of the present grows stronger 
as we remember the Provence of Kino- Rene 



INTRODUCTION 



21 






I 1,(J ^4 1 




22 



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and the troubadours, the Provincia of Rome 
and her legions. 

But in nothing so much as in their gaiety 
are the people true to Mistral, Mistral true to 
them. He could not, even when he sang the 




AN AWNING-SHADED STREET. 



tragic love of his Provencal maid, suppress 
the light laugh, which, la-bas, goes with every 
sentiment the most tender, the most passion- 
ate. The spirit of his country, — dme de Pro- 



INTRODUCTION 



23 




A PROVENCAL ROAD. 

ve7tce, — which he invokes, is joyous and proud 
and gay, and is heard in the noise of the 
Rhone and its wild wind. Every Frenchman 
wants all the pleasure the world can give. 
But the Provencal takes it with that gladness 
he inherits from remote Greek ancestors 
whose beauty survives in the Arlesienne and 
the Martigau. He is gay as his sunshine. 

I do not mean that he is shiftless and lazy 
and irresponsibly happy, like the negro or the 
gipsy. He works hard. He has his bad sea- 
sons. Luck at times goes against him, and 



24 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

he has seen days of distress and disaster. 
But in his toiHng and in his poverty he 
laughs, as did the httle Fleura^ice of the old 
Ballad in her joy. The vintager may be tired, 
but he comes home in the twilight dancing 
with vine-leaves on his brow ; all night may 
the fisherman watch his nets, but in the morn- 
ing, as he steers his boat into the harbor, he 
has a laug"h for the women on shore. To the 
field with the laborers go the tambotirinaires 
for the "pleasant reaping." And at Hallow- 
mas, do not 

... all the girls come flocking in from Baux 
And, singing, heap with olives green and dun 
The sheets and sacks, and call it only fun ? 

Theirs is the true philosophy of life, though 
they do not know they are philosophers. And 
if they are gay at all seasons, at holiday- 
time their gaiety — their pleasure for plea- 
sure's sake — is without restraint. They enter 
into their amusements with a zest no other 
men can rival, and they are not ashamed to 
be seen enjoying themselves. All alike, young 
and old, rich and poor, join in the sport. I 
remember, the morning of the first day of the 
great fete at Aries, I sat for a minute on a 



INTRODUCTION 25 

bench in the Lice by the side of an old Arle- 
sienne, a Greek in the noble beauty of her 
face and figure, a Quakeress in the primness 
of her dress. She was a peasant from the 
near country, and she had an empty basket 
on her arm and others at her feet. I asked 
her if she would stay for the "Grand Arrival 
of the Bulls." She could scarce understand 
me, so little was her French; when she did 
she shook her head indignantly. '' Fattt tra- 
vaillei^ r' she said; ''fattt travailler T' But 
she was the one exception to the rule — 
the mummy at the feast. Age or marriage 
to the Provengal is no legitimate barrier to 
pleasure. I have looked on at dances of 
Roumanian peasants in which only the youths 
and maidens took part, since men and women 
but little older, as married people, had no 
right to play. In Provence I have seen a 
gray- haired grandmother lead the farandole. 
I know that the Italians love their Carnival, 
the English their Epsom and Henley picnics; 
but the fun becomes frenzy with the Italian, 
business with the English, where it contin- 
ues graceful gaiety with the Provencal. The 
countryman of Tartarin can eat and drink 
with the bravest Eno^lishman in the land, but 



26 



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INTRODUCTION 27 

he never feasts with brutal seriousness. After 
his coup de vin he dances; what does the 
EngHshman after his ? 

Life is a galejado — a jest, a pleasantry — 
in Provence. The people there know that 
it is no small thing to enjoy the sun, to live 
light in the spring. This it is which makes 
them so different from all other men to-day; 
this it was which most delighted us, coming 
from a world where life is sad and serious. 

No one can stay in Provence without feel- 
ing the gaiety that gives new beauty to the 
simple outdoor existence of a race at once 
vigorous and childlike, that breaks out spon- 
taneously in modern Provencal literature. 
They tried to be very serious, those young 
men who banded themselves together under 
the standard of Roumanille and, one solemn 
day at Fontsegugne, formed the Felibrige. 
The Midi was once more to go forth and 
conquer France; the simple speech of the 
shepherds and gardiens of lone La Crau was 
to become the language of the world ; the 
French Academy would long be dead when 
Provengal poetry and prose, ever young, 
would remember it with pity. They were 
as certain of the importance of their calling 



28 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

as the London Socialist or Ibsenite, though 
they possessed quahfications rarer in the 
self-appointed missionary — ability and good 
work. No novel with a purpose was ever 
more weighted than they thought their light- 
est poem or tale. In humor many may have 
been lacking. But for all that, the laugh 
rings through their work, for it was steeped 
in the colors of the human life they knew 
and loved. In Roumanille's sweet singing 
the sound of girlish laughter and the breath of 
spring mingled with tears. With eyes half sad, 
half smiling, Anselme looked upon the Prov- 
ence he adored. Mistral's tragedy of "Vin- 
cen and Mireio" and his tale of "Calendal" 
were excuses to unroll, as in a panorama, 
pictures of the summer feasts and merry 
tasks of his beloved land. And Daudet, was 
he not too a Felibre in his day ? When they 
were most earnest, in the first years before 
schism or strife had disturbed the Church, 
they went gaily about their work. Daudet 
has told, once and for all, of the meetings in 
Maillane, Mistral's village ; in the Aliscamps 
at Aries, where, to the chorus of crickets and 
the shrieking of engines, Aubanel read poem 
or drama; in Les Baux, through whose 



INTRODUCTION 



29 



strange broken streets they wandered sing- 
ing their songs ; in Avignon, or in I'lle de la 
Barthelasse, under the shadow of the papal 
palace. One feels as if one too had been in 










THE ALISCAMPS, ARLES. 



the rooms of Mathieu at Chateau-neuf-des- 
Papes for the chariot-race in July, drinking 
the famous golden wine of the Popes and 
listening to the verses of Mistral ; or at those 
ferrades where peasants applauded the work 



30 



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of Roumanille and 
Aubanel and joined 
in the hymns to the 
Sun, — Grand Soleil 
de la Provence, — 
and then, the Feli- 
bres leading, danced 
endless farandoles. 
Their gospel was 
preached to the 
o sound of music and 
> laughter ; their re- 
H lio-ion was one of 
g feasting, not fasting; 
S their sermons smelled 
sweet of^// and wine. 
This was why they 
made their converts 
when Saint-Rene 
Taillandier helped 
them to become the 
fashion in Paris. It 
was because in the 
verse and prose of 
the Provengal poets 
there was something of the fraorance of the 
thyme-scented hills and olive-grown valleys 




INTRODUCTION 



31 



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32 



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of their country, something of the freshness 
of the harvest and the music of the vintage, 

that it seemed Hke 
a whiff of pure air 
after the heavy- 
laden atmosphere 
breathed in the 
"Fleurs du Mai" 
of Baudelaire or 
the **Comedie Hu- 
maine" of Balzac. 
Even men in lands of more sober creeds 
were quick to respond to their charm. Miss 




ROMAN REMAINS AT SAINT-REMY. 











ROMAN REMAINS AT SAINT-R^MY. 



Preston translated *'MIreio," and we, in our 
country where only now we begin to find time 



INTRODUCTION 



33 



for play, heard the voices of those who sing 
at work and who know that pleasure and 
beauty are life's best gifts. And next, Mr. 
Henry James made his happiest "Little Tour" 
through the Midi. And Mr. Bishop and Mr. 




ROMAN GATEWAY AT ORANGE. (ON THE LYONS ROAD.) 

Janvier both followed as gleaners in the rich 
Provencal harvest. More and more feel the 
charm which, as Miss Preston says, is in Pro- 
vence, for those who will seek it, in infinite 
measure. It is there for archaeologist and 
architect in the Roman temples and tombs, 
the arenas and theaters that make Nimes 
and Aries, Orange and Saint-Remy, equal 
in interest and only second in importance to 



34 



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Rome and Verona, to Ostia and Tivoli ; in 
the Romanesque churches with their richly 
sculptured portals and sunlit cloisters that 
are the glory of Aries and Saint- Gilles. It 
is there for the student of medievalism in 







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ST. TROPHIME, ARLES. 



the palace of Avignon, the castles of Beau- 
caire and Tarascon, in the walls and towers 
of Aigues-Mortes and the fortified church of 
Saintes-Maries. It is there for the landscape 
painter in the beautiful gray country watered 



INTRODUCTION 



35 




CLOISTERS OF ST. TROPHIME, ARLES. 



by the poplar-bordered Rhone and the wide 
salt-water lakes, where fishing-boats set sail 
at dawn and sunset, as in Venice. It is there 
for those who take pleasure in little towns, 
glaring and white in the hot sunshine of the 
south, in great prairies and briny pastures, 
where hundreds of milk-white steeds and 
furious black cattle run wild, in the lonely 
mas, or farm-house, with its cypress grove and 

Olive orchards intermixt 

With rows of vines and almond-trees betwixt. 

But, above all, it is there in the people them- 
selves — the stately women of Aries, the stal- 



36 



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wart fishermen of Martigues — and in the Hfe 
they Hve. 

And yet the country Is not tourist-ridden, 
perhaps never will be. Infinite in measure, 
its charm, again to quote Miss Preston, is 
subtle and fluctuating. Many will always see 




THE CHATEAU, TARASCON. 

desolation in its strange grayness, barbarism/ 
in its churches, discomfort in its friendly little 
inns, lack of art in its want of pictures as 
compared to Italy, childish folly in the gaiety 
of the people. There are others who, afraid 
of the southern sun and never having felt the 



INTRODUCTION 



'hi 



cool breath of the 
mistral, always go 
to Provence in the 
winter, though it is 
only in the long 
summer that the 
country can be seen 
as it really is — only 
after the first pale 
bloom of the almond 
has filled the people 
with hope of the 
spring, until the 
second tinkle of 
bells is heard in the 
land as, through 
dust-clouds, the 

flocks are driven 
homeward from 

their mountain pas- 
ture, until 

The holly-berries have 

turned red, 
And winter comes, and 

nights are long ! 

But if Provengal 

towns and waters, hills and vineyards, are 




38 



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1 y 



never exploited, we 
shall be the last to 
resent it. We can 
lay no claim to the 
discovery of their 
beauty; but now, we 
know them too well 
to want to see the 
whole land blighted 
by the invasion that 
so long has swept 
by it to the Riviera. 
Provence has a 
history as pictur- 
esque as itself, but 
we studied it solely 
in Roumanille and 
Mistral and Daudet. 
It has a language 
too, but for that 
we depended on 
translations. Agri^ 
cultural and indus- 
trial problems may 
darken many a mas, many a vineyard and 
olive-garden, but never did we go out of 
our way to find them. We were quite con- 




INTRODUCTION 



39 






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40 



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tent to amuse ourselves. We had no mission, 
no duty there. To collect facts would have 
been a task, to investigate anything a trou- 
ble. We went to Provence to play — pour 




A SQUARE AT NIMES. 



nous rigoler. Felibres might squabble, but^ 
we remembered only that their books were 
delightful. Life was gay and beautiful in the 
sunshine; we never sought the shadows. One 
need not be forever earnest and solemn, for- 
ever on the scent of evil, forever rooting out 



INTRODUCTION 



41 




42 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

wrongs. We cared far more for what was 
frivolous and light in a land of gladness. 
That incomparable masterpiece, the Proven- 
gal poster, held us spellbound in the cool 
streets of Martigues and the sunny squares 
of Aries and Nimes. I can honestly say that 
not once, when we could help it, did we miss 
a Grande Fete in town or village. For 

Glad is Provence on a day like that, 
'T is the time of jest and laughter, 

with the music and the bulls and the proces- 
sion and th^farajtcloles. It was always "mag- 
nificent," as Mistral calls it. 

Let not the critic say there are games and 
sports we did not see; this we know full well. 
Not always are they to be enjoyed for the 
mere asking. Three years we waited for the 
ferrade, and then was I not forced to let 

J go alone to the Plains of Meyran ? It 

is not in every town, nor on every river or 
lake, that men meet for the tilting. But best^ 
of all the people love the joute and the cattle- 
branding, the bull-fight and the farandole ; 
and these, either together or apart, we saw, 
and, in our turn, loved. And they are as 
joyous Id-bas in prayer, so that at Saintes- 



INTRODUCTION 



43 




44 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

Maries in the piety of the pilgrims we found 
pagan pleasure. After the priests came the 
bulls ; after the miracles, the courses. And in 
Martigues it seemed as if the spirit of Tar- 
tarin had entered into the painters, though 
several came from Paris. They worked hard, 
the tricolorists. Did not one canvas painted 
on Martigau waters, of the Maries landing 
from their boat, a rosy flight of flamingos 
across the hot blue sky, receive high honors 
at the Salo7t ? and though that may prove 
nothing, this picture was really good. But 
their work, as we watched it, was another 
galejado, part of the play in Provence. 
Sometimes I think that the fierce mistral 
and the fiercer sunshine must go to the head, 
not only of the Provengal, but even of the 
stranger from the cold north, if he but stay 
long enough. Certainly, if he be wise, he 
will do as we did, and, when in Provence, 
play with the rest. 

E. R. P. 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



II 



Biit^ when the fete-days came, farewell the swath ^ 

And welcome revels underneath the trees, 

And orgies in the vaulted hostelries. 

And bull-baitings and never-ending dances! 



SEVEN O CLOCK : 
SALVOS OF ARTILLERY 



THIS was the first announcement on the 
program for the feast, industrial, com- 
mercial, and agricultural, at Aries, signed by 
M. le Maire, and printed on great posters 
that we had seen for the last few weeks 
on the walls, not only of that town, but of all 
Provence. 

Now the morning of the feast had come. 
We awoke to the banging, we dressed to the 



47 



48 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

banging, we drank our coffee to the same 
music. In the South half the fun of the hoH- 
day is the noise made to celebrate it. 



EIGHT O CLOCK I 
SERENADE OF THE TAMBOURINES 

From a distance first, but drawing nearer 
and nearer, we heard the strangest music we 
had ever listened to. Shrill flute-like notes 
gave the tune, a dull drumming beat the ac- 
companiment. It was not in the least like a 
fife-and-drum corps ; it was not in the least 
like anything else. The musicians reached our 
hotel shortly after the hour. They were eight 
or ten in number. Each carried, suspended 
on his left arm, a long, antiquated-looking 
drum, — it was not really a tambourine at 
all, — and with the left hand he held to his 
mouth a little three-fingered flute, upom 
which he blew, while with the right he beat 
his drum. They were the most famous tam- 
bourinaires left in Provence : one was from 
Barbantane, another from Bolbonne, a third 
from Fontvieille — from Salon, from Maillane, 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 49 

from all around Mistral's country they came. 
But, unlike Daudet's Valmajoztr, these men 
were gray-haired and bent with age. Not 
one could have been under sixty-five. A 
crowd marched at their heels. At the first 
sound of their music people rushed to their 
doors and waited. All the morning they 
kept up their concert. For, pour battre tin 
an^ — dit-071 — ils deniandent tni sou; mats 
bien cinq pour se taire (To play a tune, it is 
said, they ask a sou ; but to leave off, five). 



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Wherever we walked we heard the old- 
fashioned airs shrilly piped. In the narrow 
streets small children joined hands and 
danced to the piping. In front of St. Tro- 
phime, and on the Lice, the wide, shady 
boulevard, market-women were driving hard, 
noisy bargains over their fruit, vegetables, 
and poultry, and traveling showmen had set 
up their gilded vans. But as the music 



50 



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GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 51 

passed, everybody stopped to look up and 
listen. You could see that the old men felt 
their importance and enjoyed their success ; 
they held themselves proudly, despite their 
bent backs. And when there was a minute's 
interval, like a great singer with a cold, they 
made their excuses: "One does n't really 
know what the tambourines are on a damp 
morning like this " — for the sky was over- 
cast. ''If the sun were shininor or the inis- 
tral blowing, then we could play! Allez!'' 



NINE o clock: 

GRAND REGATTA AND NAUTICAL GAMES 

The three races of the regatta were rowed 
on the fast-flowing Rhone. The racing-boats 
started from far up above Aries and came 
down with the tide ; the river did the hardest 
part of the work, the steersmen almost all the 
rest. The nautical games were in a large ba- 
sin of the canal. Men walked a pole over the 
water, climbed races up the masts of a big 
black boat, and swam matches with ducks, 
their prizes when caught. Even the dogs 



52 



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joined in, and splashed and barked in hot 
pursuit. But the dogs of Aries always take 
part in the amusements of the people. I have 
seen them run in a cycle-race on the boule- 
vards, and bait bulls in the old amphitheater 







' fif^' 



NAUTICAL GAMES. 



with the bravest amateur in town. It was aH 
great fun, but greater was still to follow. 

At twelve o'clock we had breakfast, and for 
an hour or two afterward, coffee. 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 53 

FOUR o'clock : 

GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 

Tfiis was the event of the day. Usually 
the bulls for the Sunday's bull-fight are 
brought into the town from the Camargue in 
a closed van, and scarcely any one knows 
when they arrive. But at rare intervals they 
are driven by their Camarguan keepers 
through the streets to the stables in the 
amphitheater. In most parts of the civilized 
world all precaution is taken to keep wild 
cattle out of the public thoroughfares ; in 
Provence, to send them tearing through the 
towns is the treat of treats reserved for holi- 
days. The route they were now to follow 
had been officially announced, with M. le 
maire's signature to the proclamation. The 
greater part of it, of course, lay along the 
boulevards. The whole place was barricaded 
to prevent their escape down any cross-street, 
and everywhere shutters were drawn in lower 
windows, and doors were closed, and shops 
were shut, in case they did, by chance, get 
loose. Business was suspended. 

By three o'clock, the entire town of more 
than 20,000 people had turned out to meet 



54 



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them. At the cafes on the Lice there was not 
a vacant table. Gay parties were at every 
window and in every pretty hanging-garden. 
The paths opposite were thronged, and the 
market was over. To greet the bulls the 



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THE FARANDOLE. 



Stately, handsome women of Aries had put on 
their finest costumes, their long gold watch- 
chains hanging over the Quaker-like shawls 
and soft fichus, the pretty Arlesian cross at 
their throat, a tiny square of rich old lace in- 
closed in the velvet ribbon of their head- 
dress. They walked arm-in-arm on the wide 
road, conscious that they were, as a sight, 
equal to any other part of the day's show. 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



55 



Boys already were climbing into the trees, 
in a delicious tremor of fear and expectation. 

And the tambottinnaires were out again. 
They marched straight to the public gar- 
dens. They were playing the fa7^andole. 



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56 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

And was it really because the clouds had 
now cleared away, and the sun was shining, 
or because they had just come from a good 
breakfast, and had had their coup de vin, that 
they played it with a fire and spirit we had 
not noticed in the morning? On the boule- 
vards the women nodded their classic heads 
and swayed in time as they walked. In the 
garden, at one end, children went tripping 
over the grass. The gaiety spread ; it was 
hard to stand still. 

Presently a man, a young Arlesienne in 
blue, an old wrinkled woman, her head done 
up in a handkerchief, danced out hand-in- 
hand from the crowd and down the gravel 
walk. 

'' La fai^andole I La farandole I " the peo- 
ple shouted on every side. 

The dancers had not taken many steps 
before a dozen men and women had joined 
them, and then as many more. In a long 
line, slowly at first, with arms swinging, they 
started off As the last passed us our hands 
were caught, and we were dragged along. 
We did not know a step, but what matter? 
No one else seemed to, either. Swinging 
their arms, they all jumped in the air, sang. 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 57 

and laughed, and, in the long line that kept 
getting longer, ran faster, and faster, and 
faster. But suddenly there was a cry of 
" Te ! les taureaux T' and the dancers, hot 
and breathless, rushed to the garden rail- 
ings. Out on the Lice people were fleeing 
in every direction, springing across the lit- 
tle ditch by the roadside, jumping up on the 
hiofh marble benches. 

At the far end of the boulevards rose a 
cloud of white dust. The next minute eight 
black bulls thundered past on a dead gal- 
lop, the foam streaming from their mouths, 
guarded on each side by men, each one of 
whom carried a long trident, and was mounted 
on a white horse of the Camargue. After 
them came at full tilt men and boys and 
even women. From the gardens the crowd 
turned and made a short cut for the amphi- 
theater. From every street people were run- 
ning toward it, laughing, shouting, pushing, 
panting. All Aries was racing for one more 
look at the bulls. 

We reached the front of the main entrance 
just in time to see the black beasts galloping 
up a narrow street, one or two a little in ad- 
vance, and the white horses, their riders sit- 



58 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



ting firm in the saddle, the long tridents in 
their hands. They were at the top of the 
street. The only way now open for them led 




4^ 



-■'■ ^' ^ •- ill K* 



I V - - 



RACING FOR ONE MORE LOOK AT THE BULLS. 

into the stables. Suddenly the barrier fell. 
Eight bulls were at large in the streets of 
Aries. 

Everybody left. I did not wait to see any- 
thing more. But when, once safe inside the^ 
amphitheater, I looked out again, the win- 
dows and balconies near were still crowded, 
and there were groups on many housetops ; 
but no one was on the street. 

Gradually the women came back to the 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



59 







6o PLAY IN PROVENCE 

doors, lifting up the green curtains and peep- 
ing out, while they kept the children well be- 
hind them. Men w^alked boldly about. Then 
at last we started cautiously for the hotel. 
Wild rumors were abroad. "One bull has 
gone into the Cafe du Forum. He jumped 
through the glass of the front door. The 
waiters and the patron ran. He knocked 
down the tables; he went out through the 
back door." "Two are in the Place de la 
Republique. They have got into the Hotel 
de Ville, and are mounting toward the man 
of bronze. The clerks have flown." "They 
are coming here now! Les tau7^eaux I les 
taureaux r' Then followed precipitate flight. 

But the bulls were seen no more that 
night. They had gone back to the Camar- 
gue. Eight others, fresh and fit for combat, 
were brought in the covered van to take 
their places. 

Preposterous as it may seem to let bulls 
and a regiment of cowboys loose in a town ^ 
like Aries, — a flourishing city long before 
the Christian era, — there was a barbaric 
picturesqueness about the Grand Arrival of 
the Bulls not to be found in the better- 
regulated spectacles of more serious people. 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



6i 




THE TAMBOURINAIRES IN THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION. 



NINE O CLOCK 



GRAND ILLUMINATION, TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION 



There were lanterns in the Place du Fo- 
rum, in the Place de la Repiiblique, and along 
the Lice. There were lanterns on long" poles 
borne by men and boys marching with the 
ta7nbou7dnaires, who still blew their little 
flutes and beat their long, light drums, as 
if they had not been blowing and beating 
and marching ever since early morning. In 
a blaze of light they passed through the 
dark streets into the brilliant boulevards. 
Great lamps flared in front of the tents and 



62 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

showmen's booths, where loud steam-organs 
screeched, and pretty Arlesiennes bought 
tickets to see Venus, queen of love, the 
wild animals, the serpent-charmer, or any of 
the other wonders whose portraits, stuck up 
outside, had always their group of gaping 
admirers. There were crowds at the cafes, 
crowds walking on the wide road, crowds 
sitting on the chairs which industrious 
women in fichus and ribbons were busy 
hiring out. 



TEN O CLOCK : 
THE people's ball 

The ball-room was an inclosed space under 
the trees, with four gay arches of many-col- 
ored lamps and a loud brass-band. The 
pretty women in their pretty dress, and 
their less-attractive partners, danced far into 
the warm summer night, dancing not the 
farandole, but waltzes and quadrille-like 
figures. 

And this is the way they keep a feast-day 
in Aries. In the land of " Provencal song and 
sunburnt mirth" they need no Walter Besant 



GRAND ARRIVAL OF THE BULLS 



^2, 



to teach them how to enjoy themselves. Nor 
is there any use for philanthropic millionaires 
to provide a few easily spared francs. The 
city pays all. 




THE people's ball. 

Viva la joia I 
Fidon la tristessa ! 

they still sing, as in the days when Tristram 
Shandy danced it across the broad plain of 
Languedoc. E. R. r. 



LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 



Ill 



La etaient proposes des prix pour tons les jeiix — qui 
tienneni gaie, alerie^ et vigoureuse noire Provence. 



POOH!" said the Publisher, who had 
seen it; " it is nothing at all. They 
just turn the bull loose in the arena. Then 
they turn the populace loose. First the bull 
chases the populace, then the populace chases 
the bull. It 's nothing much. Nobody gets 
hurt." 

''Oh, eet vill be no grand t'ings ; ze com- 
mon people, ze paysuns, le — le — le — ze — ze 
— ze — ze peuple run after ze bull," said the 
landlady's daughter in the English as she 
spoke it. 

Now when I hear that anything belongs 

only to the people, I know that it is always 

65 



66 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

worth looking up and nearly always worth 
seeing. The walls of Aries were placarded 
with great red posters proclaiming that never, 
never before had the historic walls of the 
arena seen such beautiful bulls ; never, never 
had the fair Arlesiennes and the brave Arle- 
siens heard such horrid bellowings, grasped, 
the unequal cocarde, or red rosette, struggled 
with the fierce beasts, and won the mag- 
nificent prize and the applause of the people. 

Regard, noble Arlesiens ! The five pure-blooded Spanish 
bulls and one cow ! 500 francs of prizes of cocardes await 
you, and of the utmost honesty of the administration does 
not all the world know the renown ? Descend then into 
the glorious arena stained with the blood of Christian mar- 
tyrs, renowned through all the ages, and to-day the home 
of the courses of your beautiful Provence ! Struggle with 
the fierce bull of Spain ! Win the prize of 500 francs, the 
approbation of your fellow- citizens, and the smile of fair 
ladies! (Signed) The Direction. 

. Wait for the small bills ! 

I could scarcely wait. I consulted Dau-c 
det. Miss Preston, *' Les Courses aux Tau- 
reaux," Mistral, the daily papers, and at last 
I found a book, '* Une Course," devoted to 
the subject. 

What did they say ? 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 67 

Daudet ? Nothing much, outside of *' Ntima 
Roiimestan." Miss Preston? *' There was a 
giddy Httle sham bull-fight going on in the 
place, but we did not stay to see it." ** Les 
Courses aux Taureaux ? " It was a bald 
description of a bull-fight, transported to 
Paris and held in the Hippodrome, eminently 
proper and therefore characterless. Mistral ? 
For a wonder, he does not, so far as I know, 
describe it. It is true Mr. Henry James has 
done so, but I had not then seen his book. All 
facts are unreliable when you want infor- 
mation. ''Une Course," of which I believe 
I was the first person to buy a copy, and 
hope I may be the last, was an account of 
a Spanish bull -fight and the three years it 
took a certain individual to see it, and all 
told in the most stupid manner. 

But now came the small bills. 

Descend, descend, brave Arlesiens ! But parents must 
guard their infants; on no account must the little ones 
strive against the pure bloods of Spain. Nevertheless, the 
direction does not hold itself accountable for the acci- 
dents. And it is most expressively forbidden to insult 
the bulls, or to throw small sticks and stones at them. 
Especially importajit : it is absolutely forbidden to attack 
the bulls with the big pins. But, gentlemen, all this is 
free — a free fight in effect. But all the same, while re- 



68 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

membering the terrible horns, think of the value of the 
prize, unheard of until to-day, bestowed by a generous 
direction to excite your zeal and audacity. Come, then, 
ladies and gentlemen, after you have witnessed the grand 
procession through the streets of your beautiful city, 
remembering 500 francs in prizes. 

Gentlemen, one franc ; ladies, 50 centimes ; soldiers and 
children, 30 centimes. 

This was Friday night. Saturday noon, in 
the middle of this beautiful placard, appeared 
a small, white, and therefore official, bill. 

Arrested. Owing to the fact that the direction is de- 
termined, contrary to the desires of the mayor, to intro- 
duce, for the benefit of the city, the pure bloods of 

Spain into Aries, therefore Mr. Jack in Office, 

the mayor, prohibits, and the fight is interdicted. 

"Aha! they make the war among them- 
selves," said the people. 

'' Zey have me veil told zey refuse, I t'ink, 
to gif of ze place free to ze mayor, and he vill 
have to stop eet," said the landlady's daugh- 
ter. " No, I do not t'ink eet vill go on." ^ 

This was serious. To be in Provence and 
not to see a bull -fight ! But the walls were 
still placarded with notices that in another 
week there would be one at Nimes. At 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 69 

Aries it did not come off, but the people 
were indifferent. They really did seem to 
think it no crreat thino-. 

o o 

The following Sunday I went over to 
Nimes. Although it had been clear for more 
than a month, when I started it was dark and 
threatening. Passing through Beaucaire, I 
had a glimpse of a fight in progress, and I 
might have stopped and assisted opposite the 
town of Tai^tarin; but I wanted to see one in 
a real Roman amphitheater. By the time the 
train drew up at Nimes it was pouring, and I 
went very sadly to the arena, only to find a 
notice that the fight had been postponed. 
Two Sundays gone, and the summer going ! 

Clear all the week, vintage in full swing, 
scenes like pictures all over the country, 
fights announced for Saint- Remy, Aigues- 
Mortes, Tarascon, but nothing in the arena ; 
Sunday, however, pouring rain, and useless 
to think of going anywhere. 

On Monday, fights were announced for the 
following Sunday in Aries and Nimes, and in 
all the country round; Sunday morning it was 
raining in torrents ; Sunday noon, drizzling ; 
Sunday afternoon there were gleams of sun- 
shine, interspersed with showers. But four 



70 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

weeks without a bull-fight — that was too 
much for both the people and the direction, 
and there was no sign of postponement. I 
went to a cafe opposite the arena at twelve. 
The gates were to open at one. At one 
it was still drizzling. At half-past it had 
stopped, and the direction looked out of its 
box-office. At a quarter of two it de- 
spatched a very brazen band in a covered 
wagon to parade the town. When, at half- 
past two, — the fight had been announced for 
three, — one gate opened, a small boy and I 
rushed to secure tickets, and we entered over 
the stones worn into grooves by Roman 
senators, American tourists, and Provencal 
lovers of bull-fights. When we emerged 
where Caesar may have stood, and the arena 
yawned vacant before us, there was a mo- 
mentary gleam of sunlight between two huge 
rain-clouds. 

But the arena was not long vacant. An 
Englishman and his wife, whom I had seen at 
the hotels, entered and, looking down at aT 
stage where there is a cafe chantant on the 
Sunday nights when there are no bull-fights, 
asked me what was ofoingf on. "A bull- 
fight ! Ah ! let 's go away before the horrid 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 71 

thing" commences. Do you know when it 
begins ? Ah ! ten minutes ; we have ample 
time to see the arena. Come, George." And 
they skipped rapidly round the huge circle, 
clambering over the broken seats, and when 
the band entered they disappeared. It is 
like this that the average tourist sees the 
character of a country. And they were the 
only foreigners, save the Publisher, in Aries. 

Though the sun did not come out, the rain 
held off, and the people, following the band, 
really began to crowd in. In ten or fifteen 
minutes the place was fairly filled. This 
arena was built to hold 26,000 people, so of 
course I do not mean that it was full. But 
two or three thousand are a big crowd to- 
day for a little town like Aries. The arena 
was gay wuth the uniforms of soldiers and 
the costumes of the Arlesiennes. 

While the band has been playing, the 
arena has been filling with the brave ama- 
teurs. I am afraid, had Constantine been 
able to come down from his palace in a back 
alley, that he would have called the ama- 
teurs — who were now taking off their shoes 
and putting on slippers, coming out of their 
blouses and crivinor their hats to friends — the 



72 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

ignobile vulgus. Although there were one 
or two very superior young men in toreador 
hats, bright red jackets, white trousers, and 
gorgeous Spanish leather slippers, which 
they were kicking off all the time, running 
about in their stocking-feet, the majority had 
no particular costume except that of the 
country. Despite the direction, one small 
boy did leap into the arena. He was pur- 
sued by the police force of Aries, caught in 
the center, and well spanked, amidst the 
applause of the audience. 

The band stopped playing. A trumpeter 
advanced and blew a blast, and a mighty yell 
rose from the people. Instead of the shout 
which might have been expected, there came 
the howl: " Te amateurs! Aha! Maria et 
Pierre la-bas I Turn in the bull ; go it, Arle- 
siens ! He I he I for the man in the white 
trousers! Hook it, gendarmes! Zou! it's only 
a lamb ! He I taureau ! Allojis, amateurs ! " 
A gate opened, and into the middle of the 
arena there almost flew a huge black bulT. 
'' My God ! is n't he ugly ! Does n't he look 
peart ! " the audience shouted. 

He saw the amateurs ; they saw him ; they 
really flew. If you want to see one hundred 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 73 

men vault a six-foot fence at the same mo- 
ment, go to Aries. Full tilt he circled round 
the whole arena, the brave amateurs tumbling 
back away from him as he passed, waving 
handkerchiefs at him ; some, braver, sitting 
atop of the six-foot wooden fence which runs 
just inside the old Roman stone barrier, 
leaving a passage between. The bull stop- 
ped in the center of the arena, bellowing and 
snorting, kicking the sand about with his feet, 
and tossing his head. He was very mad, and 
apparently did not know what he was about. 
But he is now getting his head again. The 
braver amateurs cautiously crawl over the 
fence as far as possible from him, and as di- 
rectly at his back as they can ; but he keeps 
wheeling round and round. One gentleman 
with an umbrella comes in, but at a glance 
from the bull he drops his umbrella and falls 
headlong over the barrier. Two or three 
men, however, have climbed over from dif- 
ferent corners, and the bull does not know 
which one to make for first. He tosses his 
head, shaking the little red rosette, fastened 
by wires between his horns, which is worth 
fifty francs to him who can pull it off But 
it must be taken while the bull is running, 

7 



74 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



and not only is it securely fastened, but the 
bull has two enormous horns with which to 
defend it, and the men have not even big 
pins. 

In a minute one of the light, active young 
fellows, who has kicked off his slippers, starts 




'■<-;^5^.>-anvo,3:a, / 






<y3 




^^ ^ 



CLEARING THE RING. 



running toward the bull from behind. But 
the bull sees him before he has gone twenty, 
yards, wheels around, and makes straight for 
him with his head down. At the same mo- 
ment two or three other men run toward 
the bull from different directions, yelling with 
all their might, and again he pauses for a 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 



75 



1. 







ir^li) -— ;A, 



^^^ & 







/:.n 



I^ 



A TRY FOR THE COCARDE. 



moment, but then, almost immediately, goes 
directly for one in particular. The men all 
rush across in front of him like boys playing 
cross-tag ; the man he is after swerves a 
little to one side, and, as the bull lowers his 
head to toss him, 
stops dead, puts 
his hand rapid- 
ly down with a 
short backward 
movement, and 
snatches at the 
rosette, no big- 
ger than a half- 
penny, while the bull, carried by his mo- 
mentum, goes by him for a few yards. He 
turns at once, and, as the man has on a 
red jacket, makes straight for him. The man 
leaves for the nearest barrier, which is be- 
tween five and six feet high, and over it with 
one hand he lightly vaults ; and the bull, 
seeing that he cannot stop himself without 
breaking his horns against it, goes over it, 
too. This same afternoon I saw three bulls 
take the barrier like horses. The minute 
the bull lands in the passage, the amateurs 
take to the arena, leaving their hats, shoes, 



^(i PLAY IN PROVENCE 

coats, or any other loose possessions, and 
with these the bull amuses himself, scatter- 
ing them among the audience, who yell with 
delight, while he tears madly round until he 
comes to a gate, which is opened for him, into 
the arena. At the same moment the ama- 
teurs all vault back into the passage. If the 
gate is not opened in time, the bull, as I saw 
him, jumps back again. 

''lis sont sauvages, ces choses-ld,'' says the 
Parisian. 

*' Vous avez raison, Mosseu,'' replies the 
Provengal. 

By this time the bull and the people have 
been chasino^ each other about for some fifteen 
minutes. No one is the worse for it, though 
all are a little tired. The bull does not try to 
jump any more. He has got his head, and 
he knows what he is about, and is too well 
trained to try to knock down a thick plank 
wall with his horns. Again the trumpet 
sounds. A great shout goes up from the; 
whole amphitheater: "You could n't get it! 
You could n't get it! Bully for the bull!" A 
gate opens. A jingling cow-bell sounds, and 
a merry cow comes galloping in. The cow 
trots, in the graceful manner peculiar to that 



LES COURSES -THE FIGHT 



n 



beast, up to the bull. She lows at him. He 
bellows, and becomes gentle as a sucking 
dove. They calmly run round the ring, and 
then walk out side by side, while the people 
applaud. The first fight is over. 

The bulls are all kept in the old wild-beast 
cages. Another has been decorated with the 




"COME ON, TAUREAU. 



78 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

cocarde, this time worth one hundred francs — 
no small prize to a soldier or a peasant. He 
has been led through a series of cages, one 
beyond the other, and each a little larger and 
a little wider than himself On each side of 
these cages, which have no tops and are con- 
nected by sliding doors, sit two men armed 
with ten-foot tridents having very blunt prongs 
at the end. These, as they talk about what 
they ate for dinner last night, or the prospects 
of the vintage, or any of the other topics about 
which the French or the Italian peasant is 
forever babbling, they calmly drop into the 
bull's back. Although the prongs are blunt, 
and do not run into him or in any way 
injure him, they come down with sufficient 
force to make him savage, and he resents 
this treatment by jumping and kicking and 
bellowing. When he has been sufficiently 
maddened in the first box, the door is pulled 
aside, and he pushes forward just six feet. 
By the time the last door of the series of) 
boxes is opened and he reaches the arena, al- 
though he is not hurt, he is perfectly furious. 
With a wild bellow, his head down, he blind- 
ly makes for the amateurs. They scatter, all 
but one poor man who, paralyzed with fear, 



LES COURSES— THE FIGHT 79 

stands shaklnor alone in the middle of the 
arena. He trembles and seems ready to 
drop. A shriek rises from the people. The 
bull strikes him, tossing him into the air, 
and he descends a shower of old newspapers 
and brightly colored rags, while the stick 
which held the scarecrow together rattles 
against the bull's horns. 

Mad ? Don't mention it ! He only gives up 
those rags when he sees two amateurs who 
have almost snatched his cocarde. They start 
to cross each other, there is a crash of collid- 
ing heads, and over they tumble in the dust. 
The bull, with a bellow of triumph, dances 
and comes down, digging his horns into the 
dirt, and just removing the greater part of one 
eentleman's breeches. The audience shout 
with glee and disappointment. The bull turns 
a somersault. The three squirm round on the 
ground together. The men get up, and the 
rate at which they leave the arena is remark- 
able. For the rest of the fifteen minutes the 
bull is literally monarch of all he surveys, and 
no one comes near him. Handkerchiefs, hats, 
and blouses are waved to him from over the 
barrier, but he takes no notice, and the people 
do not think it worth their while to encourage 



8o PLAY IN PROVENCE 

him. They know that a bull that has been 
trained and kept in the best condition simply 
for goring people is not to be trifled with. 
When the trumpet again sounds, and the old 
cow again enters, the bull departs, almost 
bowing right and left, for he is conscious that 
he deserves the '' Bi^avo, tau^^eau ! Bi^avo, 
Rosmif' — for he is known by his name — 
which comes to him from every side. 

As another enters, the band and the audi- 
ence are just in the middle of the chorus of 
the Boulanger March, and as the glory of the 
brave General resounds and rolls round the 
arena, the bull, who is evidently of the same 
mind as Clemenceau, endeavors to get at that 
band, which is some twenty feet above his 
head, with two barriers between. A man 
all in w^hite, except for a fisherman's red cap, 
comes dancing like a jumping-jack out into 
the middle of the arena. This is too much 
for any bull. The man leaves, but the bull 
is coming too fast for the man to vault the 
barrier, and he nimbly jumps up on the 
stage, five feet above the ground, which sur- 
rounds the boxes. On this stage stands the 
mayor of Aries talking to the direction. There 
are also the sous-prefet, much too superior to 



./ 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 8i 

talk to any one; the brigadier of gendarmes, 
in chapeau and epaulets and sword; a choice 
collection of the gentlemen of x\rles ; an 
American illustrator; and the two men with 
tridents. With one thrust the bull's head 
and horns go clear through the flimsy pro- 
scenium boards in front of the stage ; with 
a bound he lands on top of it. But before he 
is fairly landed the stage is empty. The sous- 
prefet flies into the box from which the bull 
was liberated ; the mayor, brigadier, and the 
direction disappear with little grace but much 
speed over the barrier at the back ; the men 
with tridents drop them and make for the 
arena. I have not much idea how I got there, 
but I found myself at the other end of the am- 
phitheater in time to see the bull demolish - 
inor two or three scenic towns. He looked 
around, saw a Roman triumphal arch, proved 
to his own satisfaction that it was made only 
of pasteboard, and then slowly and lumber- 
ingly jumped clown in disgust, bellowed a few 
times, asking any one to come on who wished 
to, and, as no one answered the challenge, 
proceeded to make a light lunch off some hay 
which had fallen from somewhere. This he 
found so much more attractive than fighting 



82 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



that he refused to do anything else, and had 
to be led away by his attendant cow. 

In ordinary accounts of bull-fights you hear 
of the sickening sight of disemboweled horses, 







AFTER THE FIGHT. 



and bleeding men, and butchered bulls. This 
went on with ever-changing fun, shouts, andT 
laughter, but no one was either hurt or got 
the cocai^des. Whoever thinks it is merely a 
joke to go down into one of these enormous 
arenas and snatch the tiny rosette from be- 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 83 

tween the horns of a beast who has been 
trained all his life to keep him from getting 
it, will find that he has a large piece of work 
cut out for him. For fun the Provengal bull- 
fight beats a pantomime. For danger and ex- 
pertness it is far ahead of anything I ever 
saw. As it goes on every Sunday in the 
summer-time all over Provence, Frenchmen 
regard it as too common an affair to be 
worth description. Foreigners, never going 
there at the proper season, — the summer and 
autumn, — never, or scarcely ever, see it. And 
even down in La Camargue, on the banks of 
the Rhone, in little towns, all of which save 
Aigues-Mortes are unknown, the courses, like 
base-ball matches, axe held every fete-didiy. 
They are the sport of the people, and have 
much more character in the small towns. 

I went to several of these, and, though I 
know that foreigners have attended them, I 
never saw one present. The bulls come 
into the towns in a drove, — for they are 
perfectly quiet so long as they are kept to- 
gether, — guarded by two or three of the fine 
herdsmen of La Camargue, wrapped in their 
large cloaks, and carrying tridents. The 
peasants who have come to t\\& fete in their 



84 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



enormous country carts form these into a 
ring, side by side, filling up the spaces be- 
tween the wheels 
with hurdles, old 
planks, or any- 
thing that comes 
handy. They put 
two or three rows 
of chairs on top, 
and, behind these, 
with piles of wine- 
casks topped with 
chairs they make 
an amphitheater, 
which is soon 
crowded with peo- 
ple. Everything 
is perfectly free, 
and the authori- 
ties offer one 
or two hundred 
francs in prizes, ^ 
which, however, 
I never saw any 
one take. The 
bulls are as fierce 
as those at Aries, 




LES COURSES — THE FIGHT 



85 







8 



S6 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

but the people are much more active than the 
Arlesiens, and the ring is much smaller. In- 
stead of over a safety-barrier, the men have 
to jump into the carts, which have no sides 
and are almost breast-high; and a clean jump 
must be made, because a clumsy climb with 
the assistance of a pair of sharp horns would 
not be very pleasant. 

The principal delight of the young peasants 
is to entice the bull in the direction of a party 
of pretty girls, and to spring among them, 
upsetting chairs, girls, and themselves in a 
laughing, rolling heap at the bottom of the 
cart, apparently to their own great delight, 
and certainly to that of all the rest of the 
ring. Peaches, grapes, and new wine circu- 
late all round ; I never knew any one to be 
hurt, and the whole place is filled with the 
smell of wine from the wine-presses with 
which the streets of all the villages are lined. 

At the end of the cotu^se all the bulls are 
let loose ; a curious fact about these beasts 
being that, while one bull by himself is ^ 
most savage animal, if two or three are put 
together they become as quiet as cows, and 
make a break for the open country, followed 
by the population of the village, shouting and 



LES COURSES — THE FIGHT %^ 

screaming. After them come their keepers 
loaded down with huge baskets of grapes and 
new figs that the people have given them. 






^ll:>.v' '"^ 






mi^^'^k 







A RUN FOR SHELTER. 



In the evening the whole population ad- 
journs to the place : the town band plays in 
the center ; the heroes, over their sugar and 
water, discuss their own bravery ; the harvest 
moon of Provence hangs high in the sky ; 
the scent of new wine is over everything ; 
the song of the mosquito growls louder 
and louder, and before this untiring foe the 
Provengal at last beats a retreat. 

J. p. 



THE FERRADE 



IV 



Oji a great bi^anding-day befell this thing : 
To aid the mighty herd in mustering, 
Li Saftto, Aigo Morto, Albaron, 
And Faraman a hundj'ed horsemen strong 
Had sent into the desert. 



BUT you must come back for the yerrade," 
said the little Lieutenant of Zouaves as 
we bade him good-by one August day in 
Aries, where we had descended for a moment 
on our way to Martigues. " Oh, you must 
see it, and Madame also. It will be splendid, 
magnificent, immense! Me? I have been here 
five years and have seen only one — there has 
been only one other in that time. You will 
go ? Very good. You don't know what a 
ferrade is ? But, mon cher, it is the most 
beautiful thino^ of Provence. In the morning 



90 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

they go to the Plains of Meyran. Then they 
chase the bull, and they brand him. One 
bull ? Mon Dieu, no ! Forty, or a hundred. 
Then all the world has a grand lunch. Then, 
after one has had one's drop of wine, all the 
world dances th^/arandole. Then one chases 
the bull some more, and then one reenters 
one's self Oh, ques beou I " 

Well, on the first of October we came back 
for it. We waited a week, and it rained, and 
then Madame had to go home. But finally, 
about two weeks later, one perfect Sunday 
morning, the lieutenant i7i civil, and the sous- 
prefet in a top hat, and I in no condition to 
be seen in such company, in a gorgeous turn- 
out, crossed Trincataio Bridge and made our 
way along the road that leads to Meyran. In 
front of us and behind us was a solid mass 
of ''footers," country carts, diligences, wander- 
ing horse-cars, bicycles, omnibuses, and every 
conceivable sort of conveyance, all advancing, 
silhouetted in a glory of dust. The whole 
road seemed to be going with them. Far 
ahead, when the mistral blew the dust away, 
we could see flags waving over a grand stand, 
and as the people turned out of the highroad 
on to the plains they were divided right and 



THE FERRADE 91 

left by a squad of gendarmes, and sent down 
to join one or the other of two lengthening 
files of vehicles, which, as soon as the horses 
were taken out, were placed together, end to 
end, forming a complete barrier. 

Of course swells like myself, the sous- 
prefet, and the officers of the garrison were 




ARRIVING ON THE GROUND. 



allowed to do very much as we wished, and 
we sat proudly in our carriage, quite con- 
scious of our superiority and of the fact that 
we had paid fifty francs apiece for a day's 
spree. 

After having paraded nearly all the way 
round the grounds, we drew up at the grand 
stand, from which the whole arrangement of 
th^ ferrade was plain. The inclosure formed 
by the carriages was a parallelogram, proba- 
bly half a mile long by about three hundred 
yards wide. At both ends tall masts with 



92 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



flags were stuck up some yards apart like a 
foot-ball goal. It was between these that the 
bulls were to be chased by the horsemen, 
overturned, and branded. Once a bull had 
passed the lower goal he could be run after 
by any one, but here the guardians would 
never follow. Behind one of the goals was a 




COW-BOYS OF THE CAMARGUE. 



big square pen, or corral {toril they call it), 
the top of which was decorated with a frieze 
of excited Provengaux, who were amusing 
themselves and the bulls by means of canes, 
goads, and tridents, and apparently with very 
good success, if one might judge from th(^ 
crashes that came from inside. 



Li Santo, Aigo Morto, Albaron, 

And Faraman a hundred horsemen strong 

Had sent; 



THE FERRADE 93 

and on their well-fed, beautiful, long-maned, 
long-tailed white horses they posed them- 
selves, "on their long goads leaning," talking 
of I have not the faintest idea what, for I 
cannot, and I never knew a Frenchman out 
of Provence who could, make head or tail 
of Provengal. Or with tridents carried like 
lances they statuesquely rode about, '' des 
vrais Bttffaler Beels,'' as the sous-prefet 
put it. 

I endeavored, to the best of my ability, to 
explain the difference between a cow-boy and 
the Hon. W. F. Cody, but I do not know 
whether I succeeded. 

Although the whole Camargue is probably 
not so large as some of the great western 
ranches, the life on it and the herdsmen are 
just as picturesque, and more pictorial in 
a certain way. Like the Arlesiennes, they 
know their value in the landscape, and they 
are always posing. Their gray soft hats, 
black velvet coats and waistcoats are now 
taken off and tightly rolled up behind the 
saddle. For a fete like to-day's all wear 
boiled shirts and white linen or corduroy 
trousers, but around their waists, or rather 
from their armpits down to their hips, a red 



94 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



or a blue sash is wound. Put a hundred 
men Hke this on white horses in a ghtter- 
ing plain and the effect is not bad. In fact, 
I doubt if the West could equal it. Their 
stirrups are steel-barred cages, their sad- 






W 
M 



LETTING LOOSE THE BULL. 



dies have a back to them, and their har- 
ness is all tied on; there is hardly a buckle 
about it. On both sides of the horse there 
hangs down a mass of ropes and strings, 
which give rather a disorderly effect. 

Tara-ta ! 

Tara-ta ! , 

Tara-ta-ta ! 



"Aha! they begin!" And the sous-prefet, 
and some more officers who had come up, car- 
ried me off with them to the tribune on the 



THE FERRADE 95 

grand stand. With the mayor In his sash, 
and the heads of the different administrative 
departments of Aries, we must have looked 
very imposing. At any rate, the people ap- 
preciated us, and applauded loudly, and we 
bowed condescendingly. 

Tara-ta ! 
Tara-ta ! 
Tara-ta-ta ! 



The doors of the to7dl open. We see, for 
it is too far off to hear, a great excitement in 
the human frieze, and presently a young bull 
comes out. He starts on a run at once, passes 
between the goals, and, as he does so, the 
guardians, who have gone back and formed 
a line on each side of the pen, come after 
him, although he has gotten nearly a hun- 
dred yards' start. He tears away right down 
the center of the ground, followed by the 
whole troop. They gain rapidly. They lean 
over their horses' necks, their tridents at rest, 
and, just as one man is about to give him 
a push on the flank with his trident which 
will upset him, the bull swerves, the horse- 
man, who has distanced the others, recovers 



96 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



.^P-^ 




himself with difficulty, 
the bull darts between 
the two goals, and the 
crowd on foot rush af- 
ter him ; but the horse- 
men are not allowed 
to follow him farther, 
and they let him go. 
They walk slowly back 
to the starting-place, 
surrounded by their 
friends, the younger 
fellows here and there 
taking up behind them 
a pretty girl. By the 
time they have got- 
ten back to the toril 
there is a wild com- 
motion at the other 
end of the inclosure. 
A long line of men 
and boys is unwinding^ 
itself, and a tamboMri- 
naire is playing the 
farandole ; they hold 
a rope which has been 
put around the bull's 



THE FERRADE 



97 




THE CHASE OF THE BULL. 



neck, for they have 
thrown and branded 
him. Now he wears 
a wreath of grape- 
leaves, and a young 
fellow, also crowned 
with vine-leaves, sits 

proudly astride him like a young Bacchus, 
while others keep the bull straight by means 
of his tail. It is thus that the first bull of 
the day is miade to dance t\\^fara7idole. The 
whole affair, save for the costumes, is classic; 
and about it, too, is much of the old Roman 
cruelty. The people plagued the bull unmer- 
cifully, and he would be savage enough were 
he not played out. 

''Tell them to let him go," said the sotcs- 
prefet to a gendarme, and they did at once. 




BETWEEN THE COURSES. 



98 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



Tara-ta ! 
Tara-ta ! 
Tara-ta-ta ! 



Now the same race began again. A ge7i- 
darme who had been telHng some people 

to get off the 




ofround had for- 



ofotten 



THE CHASE OF THE GENDARME. 



to get 
out of the way 
himself, and the 
moment the bull 
saw another big black object dancing around 
on the plain he made for it. The prevalent 
idea is that a bull's gallop is not very rapid ; 
but even the little white horses could scarcely 
catch him when he was given a hundred 
yards' start. When the big black charger of 
the solitary gejidanne woke up to the fact 
that the bull was almost upon him he lay 
back his ears and ran. There was no dodg- 
ing with him, as there would have been with// 
the little white horses. The bull overhauled 
him, stride upon stride. It was all over in a 
few seconds. There was a thud, a shriek from 
the people, the black horse turned a somer- 
sault, the gendarme flew as if he had been 



THE FERRADE 



99 



shot ; then he was carried away, and the 
horse was dragged off the ground. It was 
exciting and reahstic, but not pleasant. Only 







two or three incidents of this kind happened 
during the morning, but they were quite 
enough. One man was caught in the middle 
of the plain, and, 



" Sham dead ! " went up a cry of agony. 



loo PLAY IN PROVENCE 

Another time, however, 

. . . The beast his victim Hfted high 
On cruel horns and savage head inchned, 
And flung him six and forty feet behind. 

It was " Mireio" realized. 

One detail, perhaps, Mistral never saw. 
Not all the bulls went out at once between 
the goals and escaped, even though they were 
not overturned and branded ; but they tore up 
and down the plain until they were upset. 
One, more clever than the rest, went between 
the wagon-wheels at the side ; but finding 
three horses in his way, he lifted them out on 
his horns, and vanished into the Camargue. 

But even Provengaux get hungry, and in 
October it is very hot at noon. Another 
bugle sounded, and the play stopped, and 
two or three hours were consumed in the 
serious business of dining. All had not quite 
finished their coup de vin when from in front 
of the grand stand the music was heard. 

*' La farandole / La fara7idole / '' ^ 

Up from the tables they jumped at once, 
catching one another's hands as they rose. 
Little lines of men and women, boys and 
girls, danced out on the plain from the rows 



THE FERRADE loi 

of wagons, and longer ones from the pine- 
groves where they had been lunching. They 
came dancing and running toward one an- 
other. And then, with a change in the tune, 
a long line started straight across the plain, 
a line of probably two thousand, swells and 
peasants, officers and cow-boys, whole fami- 
lies ; in fact, in ten minutes a third of the 
fifteen thousand people present must have 
joined it. The old tamhourinaires played 
faster. The head of the line, now hundreds of 
yards long, had come back again. It wound 
in and out in circles. It went faster and fas- 
ter. It swung round and round like a great 
"crack-the-whip." Then, with a wild scream 
from the flutes, a roll from the drums, and a 
great cheer, it stopped. 

That is the way one ''makes the feast" in 
Provence. 

More farandoles, more bulls, more faran- 
doles. Long twilight is coming on. The 
bulls, branded or not, are scattered all over 
the Camargue; the tambourinaires are ex- 
hausted. The people are as gay as ever. In 
a whirlwind of dust, with galloping horses, 
every one returns to Aries. 

And yet this was not all. Every street in 



I02 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



the twilight was Hned with Arlesiennes sit- 
ting in rows upon the sidewalk; and just as 
we came into the town a band of vintagers, 
garlanded and happy, each with vine-leaves 
on his brow and a few sous in his pocket, 
danced over Trincataio Bridge. 

'' Do they know they are so picturesque?" 
I asked the sous-p7^efet. 

''Why do they wear their costume?" was 
his answer. 

And as, white with dust, we passed St. 
Trophime, two red-booked pilgrims slowly 
uttered, '' Now, ain't that handsome ! " 

You visit a country ; you see it, or you 
don't. 

J. p. 




THE RETURN TO ARLES. 




" IT IS AS GOOD AS VENICE." 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



V 



When Peace descends upo7i the troubled ocean, 

And he his wrath forgets, 
Flock from Marti gues the boats with wing-like 7 notion, 

The fishes fill their nets. 



ONE burning hot day in August we left 
the Hmited express at Aries to take 
the slowest of slow trains. It carried us in a 
gentle, leisurely fashion across the wide plain 
of La Crau and between the dark cypress 
avenues which line the embankment, stop- 
ping every few minutes, at one station for half 
an hour for a cargo of grapes, at another for 
three-quarters to let a fast train pass. 

But we did not mind. We had now fairly 
begun the voyage of discovery which we had 

been planning for a year or more. We were 

105 



io6 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

on our way to discover the Etang de Berre 
and Martigues, the chief city on its banks, but 
one absolutely unknown to fame, apparently 
to the guide-book, and even to Mistral save 
as a peg on which to hang two beautiful lines. 
And as for the Etang de Berre, probably a 
thousand people go by it every day on the 
express between Marseilles and Lyons, but 
who ever looks at it, except, perhaps, to won- 
der vaguely what this great stretch of water 
is that follows the railroad almost from Mar- 
seilles well on to Aries ? Erom our carriage 
window we watched its olive-clad shores and 
its beautiful islands ; we saw the towns upon 
its banks, perched up, as in medieval pic- 
tures, on high hilltops, or nestling low down 
on the very water's edge. And at last we 
came to Pas de Lanciers, where we once 
more had to change cars. 

Again we set out, at a still more leisurely 
pace, through endless olive orchards. We 
stopped oftener. The stations degenerated; 
into mere sheds, and at each women took 
the mail, collected the tickets, smashed the 
trunks ; was this, then, a land of women's 
rights? And all the time we were talking 
of the little, lovely town, like another Venice, 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



107 



which we were about to claim as our discov- 
ery, for already, one summer, J had been 

there to spy it out and had seen its loveliness. 
Just before we started we had read in '' The 
Century's" "Topics of the Time" that there 
was no place left in the world to be discov- 



■^^ 



^ 



»'?f 







-T-i,.,.-/: ..I'/w 



CHURCH AT MARTIGUES. 



ered. But that was true geographically, not 
pictorially ; Martigues might be found on the 
map, but not in paint or in print; and we 
were in high spirits at the prospect. 

It was dusk when the train finally crawled 
into Martigues. We were worried about our 
baggage, uncertain whether, in so primitive a 



io8 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 




A PAINTERS' PARADISE 109 

place, any one could be found to carry our 
heavy trunk and traps from the station to the 
hotel. We tried to consult our one fellow- 
traveler, but he could speak only an unknown 
tongue, the Provencal, which some travelers 
have found phonetically intelligible, but of 
which we could hardly understand a word; 
and Martiorues seemed more out of the world 
than ever. The train stopped ; we got out, 
gave up our tickets, and passed through the 
station. At once three men wearing caps 
emblazoned with the names of hotels fell upon 
us, and each asked if we were not oroinof to 
his house. Two stages and a couple of car- 
riages were waiting in the little open square. 
No one to carry our trunk into the town, 
indeed! 

In our surprise we stood there a minute 
undecided. But a brisk little man with short 

black beard bustled up and took J 's big 

white umbrella and camp-stool out of his 
hands. 

"You must come to my hotel," he said; 
" it is there that all the painters descend." 

And he helped us into the stage, hunted up 
our trunk, lifted it to the driver's seat, got in 
after us, and before we realized what had hap- 



no PLAY IN PROVENCE 

pened we were being jolted over the cobbles 
of narrow, dimly lighted streets. 

" I can give you a room," he said, as we 
were driving along. " I am the patro7i [the 
proprietor]. Only yesterday six painters left 
me. I can give you the room a monsieur 
from Marseilles and his wife had." 

Six painters ! We had planned a brilliant 
pictorial discovery ; was it possible that we 
were to find instead merely another pop- 
ular painters' settlement ? The blow was 
crushing. 

There was no doubt about it when we 
reached the hotel, for the hall into which we 
were ushered was strewn from end to end 
with easels, and canvases, and all the usual 
studio litter, leaving but small space for the 
black brass-bound boxes of the commercial 
traveler. Madame, who at once bade us wel- 
come, told us our room was not quite ready, 
but we could make our toilet for dinner here 
in the corner. And as we washed our hands 
at the big brass fountain or sink that stands 
in the hall of every French commercial hotel, 
in came a man with pointed beard, soft felt 
hat on the back of his head, a white umbrella 
under one arm, a sketch-book sticking out of 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



III 



his pocket. Six painters had gone, but how 
many were left in Martigues? 

We found that out very quickly the next 
morning when, after our coffee, we started 




''% 



YOUNG SAILORS. 



to explore the town. In the walk of the 4th 
of September, in the long shady Place on 
which the hotel stands, the first person we 



112 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

met was a tall, good-looking man, in striped 
red and black jersey and huge straw hat, 
walking with military step, and at his heels 
followed a small boy in one of the funny little 
aprons all French boys wear, almost bent 
double under a load of canvas and camp- 
stool. And when we wandered to the canals 
which, as at Venice, run through the town, 
and when we crossed the bridges, we saw at 
every turn an easel, and behind it a man in 
white Stanley cap or helmet painting the 
very houses and water and boats which we 
had come to discover. And after our midday 
breakfast, when we went to the cafe next door 
to the hotel, there at a table under the trees 
were half a dozen helmets and Stanley caps, 
and a huge pile of canvases and umbrellas, 
and outside, playing leap-frog with a crowd 
of other urchins in aprons, was the little boy 
whom we had met earlier struggling beneath 
his burden. The proprietor of the cafe was 
sitting with the helmets, but he joined us 
presently, and asked if we were painters too. 
"We always have painters here," he said; 
'' they come even in winter. There are so 
many motifs for them in Martigues. Mon- 
sieur has not begun to see it yet. You must 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 113 

go this afternoon to the Bordigues, where 
every painter who comes to Martigues makes 
a picture, or else, perhaps, to the Gacherel, 
where all these gentlemen," waving his hand 
to the helmets under the trees, " are at work 
in the afternoon. Yes ; the motifs are many." 

As we walked from the cafe down toward 

the water, J with a sketch-block under 

his arm, a little toddling child who could 
scarcely talk lisped '' pinter'' as he passed, as 
though, instead of being unknown in Mar- 
tigues, the painter was one of the first objects 
to its children, his name the first on their lips. 
Before we had gone very far along the shore 
of the orreat lake that stretches between Mar- 
tigues and the Mediterranean (the Etang de 
Caronte it is called on the map), we came 
to a little building with huge window opening 
upon the dusty road and facing northward; 
and in the garden beyond was something 
white and shining. A man was superintend- 
ing some work close by, and we asked him 
whose house this w^as, for the window looked 
mightily like a studio. 

"Don't you know?" he said in amaze- 
ment. '' It is there M. Ziem lives." 

We had thought M. Ziem dead for years. 



114 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 




and here he was 
aHve in Martigues, 
which he had dis- 
covered before we 
were born. 

''Here," the man 

went on, " he has 

painted all of his 

Venices, and Con- 

stantinoples, and 

Cairos. Here is 

I the Nile, or the 

^ Adriatic, or the 

« Bosphorus, as he 

P may wish, flowing 

H past his very door. 

There on the near 

hillsides are the 

stone - pines and 

cypresses of the 

south and east; on 

the water beyond 

lies Venice ; and 

here in his garden 

are the mosques 

of Constantinople. 

A Iks/'' 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 115 

We went and looked closer then, and we 
saw that the litde white shining thing was a 
toy mosque with dome and minarets, that ori- 
ental pots and jars were scattered about in 
the garden, and that two or three men were 




ziem's studio. 

putting up another and larger mosque, the 
framework of its dome and minarets lying 
with the stones and mortar below its unfin- 
ished walls. 

Still farther down the road a man breakino- 
stones by the wayside stopped to point out 
the Gacherel, the great farm upon the lake- 
side, with beautiful cypress grove and sunlit 
garden, where the vines overshadowed an old 
stone well, and there, under the cypresses, 
were the easels and helmets in a row. 

There were painters wherever we went ; 
painters walking slowly down the blindingly 
white road under white umbrellas ; painters 



ii6 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 



Staring at the sunset from the lower hill- 
tops ; painters under the olives ; painters in 
the hotel dining-room. It was a town of 
painters. Where was our discovery? Was 
this the little city lying forgotten and un- 










FISHING FROM BOATS. 



sought in a watery wilderness that we were 
to be the first to make known for the plea- 
sure of all the world and our own great 
glory — this southern seacoast Barbizon ? 

Of course it was a disappointment. Fancy 
if in the heart of the African forest Stanley 
had met, not pigmies, but another Emin Relief 
Expedition. But now that we were there we 
might as well make the best of it. Though 
the explorer had been in Martigues before us, 
there was no reason why we should not enjoy 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 117 

the artist's life led in this remote painters' 
paradise — this paradise without drains or 
sewers, but a paradise for all that On the 
surface there was an Arcadian simplicity in 
the painter's daily existence that was very 
charming. We began to talk about Miirger's 
Bohemia, and Barbizon in the days before it 
had been exploited, and by our second morn- 
ing we were really glad that, instead of 
making a pictorial discovery, we had found 
a well-established artist colony. We were 
quite ready to be friendly. 

At first we thought the artists were too. 
After our second breakfast M. Bernard, our 
landlord, stopped us in the hall. 

"These gentlemen, the painters," he said 

to J- , ''are eager to do all they can for a 

colleague. There is one who offers you his 
boat ; it is at your entire disposition. Among 
brother artists it is always so ; take it when 
and where you want. There is another who 
wishes to fraternize with you ; he will show 
you about Martigues ; he knows it well, and 
Monsieur is still a stranger." 

What could have been kinder ? 

''Where can I see these gentlemen to 
thank them ? " asked J . 



ii8 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

^' Oh," said M. Bernard, ''be sure they will 
give you the chance at once. One Monsieur 
goes to the Cafe du Commerce, the other to 
the Cascade. You will always find them 
there. And there are many painters still in 
my hotel. They, too, will wish to know and 
to talk with Monsieur T 

We were on our way to the Cascade when 
he stopped us, and now we hurried there the 
faster, gay and smiling, prepared to meet the 
gentlemen, the painters, half-way. The hel- 
mets and Stanley caps were under the same 
tree, but they stared vacantly over our heads 
as if they did not see us. It was not easy to 
go up and ask, "which of you gentlemen is 
the one who would fraternize with me ? " But 
we sat at a near table to give him every 
chance, and when the dog of one of the party 
ran up we patted it and fed it with sugar, 
though only the minute before we had seen 
it snapping at the tail of the pet goose of 
the cafe and at the legs of small boys in 
the street, and should have preferred keep- 
ing it at a respectful distance. But no fra- 
ternal greeting had passed between us when 
the gentlemen, the painters, buckling on 
their knapsacks, and with wild, loud cries of 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



119 



"Black! Brosse! Black! Brosse ! " for the 
dog and the little black-aproned boy, started 
in the hot sunshine for the Gacherel. 

In the evening, after dinner, we went to the 
Commerce. We wanted to thank the friendly 
artist who had offered us his boat. The cafe 
was crowded; men in fishermen's jerseys, men 
in velveteens, men in alpaca coats, were drink- 
ing coffee and playing dominoes. We 
sat down at a table in strong light and 
waited. No one noticed us ; and here 
if we were to make the first advances, 
we should have to begin by asking, 
''Which of you gentlemen are 
artists ? " For at this cafe were 
no helmets and Stanley caps, no 




A FAVORITE MOTIVE. 



I20 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

canvases and campstools, not so much as a 
piece of paper or a lead-pencil. 

We waited quietly all the evening, but no 
fraternal sign was given. We waited the next 
day, and the next, and the day after that. We 
waited a week, two weeks. At the hotel the 
man in the big hat occasionally wished us a 
cold and non-committal ''Bon jour'' or ''Bon 
soir'\' the others never paid the least atten- 
tion to us. On the streets and in the cafe the 
Stanley caps and helmets persistently stared 
over our heads. The owner of the boat mod- 
estly refused us the chance to thank him. We 
were left severely to ourselves. What would 
MUrger have said to the good fellowship of 
this modern Bohemia? 

However, though we were cast upon our 
own resources, there was much that was pleas- 
ant to see and to be done. Martigues, though 
it had not waited for us to discover it, was as 
picturesque as if none but its native fishermen 
had stepped upon its sea-washed shores. Lt 
was really the Provengal Venice, which we 
had not the satisfaction of being the first to 
call it. For scarcely had that too aggressively 
appropriate name occurred to us than we saw 
it in big letters on an old stage, and next on 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



121 







LOOKING DOWN THE GRANDE RUE. 



122 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

a cafe ; while M. Bernard was quick to ask us 
if we did not find his town '' vraiment tme 
Venise Provengale f " Lying, as it does, just 
between the Etang de Berre and the Etang 
de Caronte, where their hill-girt shores draw 
close together and almost meet, the sea-water 
runs between its white houses and carries the 
black boats with their graceful lateen sails to 
its doors. Only a step from its canals you 
wander through the silvery olive orchards 
of Provence, or climb the sweet lavender- 
scented hillsides, or follow a smooth, white 
road past an old red-roofed farmhouse, or a 
dark cypress grove, or a stone-pine standing 
solitary, or else a thick hedge of tall, waving 
reeds. And even while in the town, you can- 
not help seeing the country as you never do 
in Venice. As the fishermen drew up their 
nets on canal-banks there would come rattling 
by long Provengal carts, drawn by horses that 
wear the blue wool collar and high-pointed 
horn which makes them look like some do- 
mestic species of unicorn. Or in the cool of 
the summer evening, after the rest during the 
day's heat, a shepherd, crushing a sprig of 
lavender between his fingers as he walked, 
would drive his goats and sheep over the 



- A PAINTERS' PARADISE 123 

bridg-es, and start out for the lone nieht's 
browse on the salt marshes by the lake, or 
on the sparse turf of the rocky hillsides ; or in 
the morning, just as the white-sailed boats 
were coming home, he would leave his flock 
huddled together on the church steps or in 
the little square. 

But you could walk from one end of Mar- 
tigues to the other without stumbling upon 
a single architectural or historical monument 
worth mention in the guide-book. It is not 
a place for the tourist. Even if its beauty 
alone could attract him, its unspeakable dirt 
would quickly frighten him away. And the 
blue waters of its canals reflect no palaces 
and churches which a Ruskin would walk 
a step to see ; there is no St. Mark's, no 
Piazza, no fair Gothic house like that of 
Desdemona. The only buildings with the 
slightest pretense to architectural distinction 
are the church, with the fine but florid Re- 
naissance portal, which the architect would 
call an example of debased rococo, and the 
great square Hotel de Ville, massive and 
simple as an old Florentine palace. The 
only building with the slightest suggestion 
of history or legend is a lonely little gray 



124 



PLAY IN PROVENCE 




THE PORTAL OF THE CHURCH. 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 125 

chapel which, from the highest hilltop near, 
overlooks the white town and its blue lakes. 
When we asked about it, one man thought 
a monk lived up there, and another knew he 
had been dead for years, and all traces of its 
past had been lost with the keys of its sev- 
eral doors. Martigues may have a history, 
but we made no further effort to learn it. 

All this time we saw a great deal of our 
brother artists, as M. Bernard pleasantly 
called them. How could we help it ? Mar- 
tigues was small ; they alone shared it with 
the fishermen. Twice a day we sat face to 
face with them, though at separate tables, in 
the little hotel dining-room, which was so 
cool and quiet during the week, so crowded 
and noisy on Sundays, when excursionists — 
the cockneys of Marseilles, cyclists in red 
shirts and top-boots, peasants in their shirt- 
sleeves, beautiful Arlesiennes in the hchu and 
coif of Aries — descended upon Martigues to 
eat boiiillebaisse at M. Bernard's. Regularly 
we passed the same easels on our daily walk 
through the town, at the hour when women 
were bravely pretending to sweep away its 
hopeless dirt, or making their own and their 
children's toilets on the doorsteps, or going 



126 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

with stone jars to the well, or marketing 
under the sycamores in front of the Hotel de 
Ville; while the stage from near Port de Bouc 
came rumbling over the bridges with loud 
blowing of bugles, followed, if it were Sun- 
day or Thursday morning, by the street car 
which, with its three horses, gave Martigues 
for a few minutes quite the air of a big town. 
As likely as not, we chanced upon a white 
umbrella and an unopened sketch-book on 
the drawbridge over the main canal, where 
I loved to linger to watch the fishermen 
unloading their nets of the huge fish that 
looked so absurdly like pasteboard, raking 
up the bottom of the canal for mussels, and 
posing statuesquely with their fichouiro, as 
they call it in their impossible Provengal, the 
long pole, with a row of sharp iron teeth at one 
end and a string at the other, with which they 
spear the fish that escape the nets, bringing 
them up bleeding and writhing. And always^ 
at the Cascade, after breakfast, we found the 
same group under the trees, in striped jerseys 
and white Stanley caps or helmets on hot 
days, in overalls and straw hats when a 
light breeze freshened the air, in blue flan-' 
nel and derby hat when the 7nistral blew — 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 127 

they were perfect little men of the weather- 
house ! 

Their arrival at the cafe was the great 
event in our square in the interval between 
the Sunday ball and the Thursday opera, 
which was so comic even when it was meant 
to be grand. The tall painter led the way, 
Madame at his side ; at his heels two dogs, 
and the small black-aproned boy laden with 
his tools ; then came the short, fat gendeman, 
the painter, all his traps on his own stout 
shoulders, walking with his head thrown 
back, his fat little stomach thrown out as 
if he carried with him wherever he went the 
consciousness of Salon medals to come and 
Albert Wolfs dearly bought puffs ; then his 
thin, tall, gray-haired father-in-law, his stool 
and canvas, for variety, slung over one arm ; 
then another manly back erect under a heavy 
load; and on many days there were no less 
than six in this impressive party. But it was 
the setting out for afternoon work that we 
waited for with delight; even after we had 
drained our glasses of the last drop of coffee, 
even after I had read every word of the four 
serial shilling shockers pubHshed in "Le Petit 
Provengal" and "Le Petit Marseillais." For 



128 



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first there would be the wild, loud shouts of 
''Black! Brosse ! Black! Brosse!" until the 
setter and the black apron would rush from 
some unseen haunt back to the cafe gate ; 
there would be the buckling on of knapsacks, 
the lifting up of burdens, and then the brave 
march, three, four, five, or six abreast, down 
the wide street to the lake in all the glare 
of two o'clock sunlight. At the foot they 
passed out of sight in the direction of the 




GOING TO THE GACHEREL. 



Gacherel. Whoever chose to follow them 
would find them there, still three, four, five, or 
six abreast, easels set up under the shadow 
of the cypresses, six, eight, ten, or twelve 
eyes turned to where the white walls and red 
roofs of Martigues rose from the blue water. 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



129 



But the greatest sight of all was when a new, 
spotless canvas, on an arrangement that looked 
like a section of a four-posted bedstead, was 
borne in triumph by Brosse and two assis- 







A 



THE GACHEREL. 



tants in front of the procession. Who, after 
seeing that, would ever again say that the 
painter's life is all play ? 

During our afternoon rambles we usually 
had all to ourselves the olive orchards and 
the lavender-scented hillsides that looked 
seaward. But at the hour of absinthe, wdien, 



I30 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

from the western ridge of hills beyond the 
lake, cypresses and olives rose black against 
the light, and all the bells of the town were 
ringing out the angelus, and the swift boats 
were sailing homeward along a flaming path 
across the waters, then we would again meet 
the party from the Gacherel, their backs res- 
olutely turned to the setting sun, once more 
on their way to the Cascade ; and we would 
overtake the white umbrellas, now folded, 
while their owners, sketch-books sticking out 
of their pockets, hands behind their backs, 
strolled slowly toward the Mediterranean, 
gazing westward. But, often as we saw oyr 
brother artists, they always passed us by on 
the other side. 

I do not know how long this would have 
lasted if it had not been for Black, the dog 
we had fed with sugar. His master went 
away to near Avignon for a day or two, and 
poor Black was left tied to the cafe gate, 
while the goose cackled derisively just be- 
yond his reach, and the small boys played 
leap-frog just within his sight. His eyes fol- 
lowed us so wistfully when we came in or 
out, that one morning I unfastened the strap 
and took him for a happy walk. That very 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 131 

evening his master returned to Martigues. 

J and I were sitting on the httle bench 

in front of the hotel, alone as usual, when 
Monsieu7^, on his way to the Cascade, his 
only dissipation, stopped with Madame. 

"I t'ank you. Madam," he said to me in 
excellent English, but with a charming ac- 
cent, " for your kindness to my dog. You 
are very good." 

^' Voits etes bien aimable ! '' ("You are 
very amiable ") chimed in Madame, and we 
were friends on the spot. 

And now, as Mr. Black would say, a 
strange thing happened. For one by one 
all the other gentleman painters began to 
speak to us. And, stranger still, all spoke 
in English, just as all wore English clothes, 

though it was only J- in a French hat 

and necktie, always talking French, — even 
to a stray sailor who told him reproachfully, 
"Why, I thought you was an Amurrican!" — 
who was ever mistaken for an Englishman. 
And strangest of all was that they under- 
stood their own English so much better 
than ours that when it came to a conver- 
sation we had to fall back upon French, no 
matter what they talked. 



132 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

It had been quite plain to us all along 
that something more than the length of the 
walk separated the gentlemen, the painters, 
of the Cafe du Commerce, whose sketch-books 
never left their pockets, from those of the Cas- 
cade, whose canvases were never put away. 
No one could have stayed in Martigues a 
week without seeing that beneath the Ar- 
cadian surface of its artists' life all was not 
exactly as it should be. Sometimes we had 
thought it must be a matter of dress — a 
question between brand-new helmets and 
conspicuous Jerseys on the one side, very 
shabby ordinary hats and coats on the other 
— which kept the two groups as wholly 
apart as if their cafes represented the rival 
Salons. But now that both were equally 
cordial to us, we saw into the true state of 
affairs quickly enough. Had we been more 
curious, we need have asked no questions. 
We had only to listen while they talked. 

'' Bah ! " said one of the Commerce one 
evening, as we walked together past the 
Cascade and saw the helmets over their ab- 
sinthe — " Bah ! " the tricolorists ! They al- 
ways paint red roofs, white houses, and blue 
sky and water. But que voulez-voitsf They 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 



133 




134 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

see nothing else. They want to see no- 
thing else. They make the grande 7nachine ! 
When sea and sky are most beautiful, they 
go to the cafe. They care not for nature. 
But it is the way with the painters of to- 
day. They are all blind to nature's most 
subtle, most delicate effects. They come to 
a place ; they wait never to learn its beau- 
ties, to know it really. They take out their 
canvas, and they make their picture, en 
plein air, and think it must be fine because 
it is painted so, with nature before them for 
model. No good work was ever done like 
that." 

'' But Claude Monet ? " we suggested. 

He shruorored his shoulders. " But did 
ever Claude Monet set up his easel in the 
morning a«t nine and paint steadily the same 
effect until twelve, though shadows had 
shortened and the sun risen high in the 
heavens ? Did he think the light at three 
the same as at five ? No ; I don't under-' 
stand the modern school. When I was in 
Paris such masters as Rousseau, Corot, Ziem 
were respected, not triflers like Monet. And 
what were their methods ? They studied na- 
ture, they communed with her, they watched 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 135 

her every change, they saturated themselves 
with her. And then, with all this know- 
ledge, all these memories, they went into 
the studio and composed a great picture ; 
they were not content to make a painted 
photograph." 

We had almost reached the Gacherel by 
this time. Far out beyond the two lights of 
Port de Bouc the afterglow was just begin- 
ning to fade, the dusky grays were gradually 
creeping westward, a great rift of pale faint 
green showed beneath a ridge of flaming 
clouds. " Look at that ! " he cried, standing 
still and pointing with arm extended to the 
west, while chattering girls from the washing- 
place, and children singing '' Sur le pont 
d' Avig7ion,'' and laborers starting homeward 
after their day's work, and priests out for 
their evening walk, passed down the road. 
But no one noticed him ; he and the sunset 
were every-day occurrences at Martigues. 
'' Look at that ! Can I bring my canvas and 
paint here an effect which is gone in five min- 
utes ? No ; but I come evening after even- 
ing at this hour. I regard, I study, I learn. 
The inspiration seizes me. I must paint. I 
shut myself in my studio. I wrestle with 



136 



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A PAINTERS' PARADISE 137 

color ! That is art ; not to cover so many 
inches of canvas every day, to use brushes 
for so many hours by the clock, as if I were 
but a weaver at his loom. A lions ait cafe!'' 

The next day at noon we were drinking 
coffee with our friends at the Cascade. 

" And your big picture ? " we asked of one. 

''It marches. Two weeks more, working 
every morning, and I shall have finished it. 
I begin another this afternoon at the Gach- 
erel ; I must give it all my afternoons. It 
is my Salon picture. Every year I have 
had my Salon pictures on the line ; every 
year I have sold one to the state. I have 
always had a medal wherever I have ex- 
hibited. Albert Wolf has written about me. 
Reproductions of my paintings you will 
find in the Salon catalogues." 

One from the Commerce sauntered by, his 
big white umbrella up, a fan in one hand, 
his tiny sketch-book, as usual, in his pocket. 

"They never work, these men," the hel- 
met said with a shrug ; " and what can 
they expect ? They stay in Martigues, they 
do not come to Paris, they do nothing. 
You never see them with paint or canvas. 
They never work out of doors ; they are not 



138 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

fill de siecle. And then they do not Hke it 
when others get the good places and the 
medals. They think no one to-day does 
good work, no one after Corot, and Dau- 
bigny, and their eternal M. Ziem ! They 
abuse everybody else. They loaf and talk 
only of themselves. Mon Dieu, it is two 
o'clock! We must be off. Black! Brosse!" 

And down the wide street marched the 
procession of brave workmen, while over at 
the Commerce the idlers sat for a couple of 
hours, playing with their dogs and talking 
about the greatness of art before the com- 
ing- of the modern artist. 

We heard much of this talk. Many an 
evening poor Desiree, carrying the soup 
from the kitchen to the dining-room, would 
have to force his way through the group 
listening to an impromptu lecture on true 
artistic methods ; many a morning a little 
crowd assembled under the sycamores of the 
walk for a lesson in true artistic perspective 
without the aid of camera. And daily we 
watched the progress of the big canvases, 
and learned of the strifes and strue^les of 
the artist in Paris, where the spoils of the 
art world must be intrigued for as are polit- 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 139 

ical spoils at home, and where a good coat 
and a swell studio are the artist's highest 
recommendations, even as in London or 
New York. 

Art for art's sake was the creed held at 
the Commerce ; art for a medal's sake at the 
Cascade. 

I was glad that we were allowed to hold 
a neutral position, to be neither tricolorist 
nor romanticist, but independent, like the 
young painter who gave lessons to all the 
pretty girls in Martigues, and the old pro- 
fessor of drawing who sang such gay songs 
over his wine after dinner. I liked the 
methods of the communers with nature : to 
spend morning and evening studying her 
among the olives and from canal-banks, to 
do nothing and call it w^ork, what could be 
pleasanter? And yet success is sweet, and 
successful artists do not always do the worst 
work. Was not Velasquez a courtier ? and 
did not Titian live in a palace ? 

However, if all the ways of Martigues 
were not peace, at both cafes it was agreed 
that the town was a real painters' paradise. 

"It is as good as Venice," they would say 
at the Commerce. "We have the boats, the 



I40 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

canals, the fishermen, and the sunHght ; in 
the morning even Port de Bouc in the dis- 
tance is as fine as the Venetian islands. And 
yet it is so much more simple. The effects 
at a certain hour are the same every day — 
every day. It composes itself; it is not too 
architectural. And it is small ; you get to 
know it all. You must not always be study- 
ing new tnotifs, new subjects, as in Venice. 
That is why M. Ziem likes it better than all 
the other places where he has painted." 

'' It is as good as Venice," they would say 
at the Cascade, "and so much nearer for 
us. We lose less time in coming. And peo- 
ple who buy paintings and go to exhibitions 
are not fatigued with looking at pictures of 
Martigues, as they are with those of Venice. 
Every painter has not worked here." 

And they might have added that it has 
not been exploited and ruined like the vil- 
lage on the borders of the northern forest, 
or the fishinor-town on the Cornish coastX^ 
It is not filled with aggressive studios, it 
gives no public exhibitions, it has no old 
men and women falling into position as the 
artist passes, no inn parlor with picture-cov- 
ered walls. The only sign of the painter's 



A PAINTERS' PARADISE 141 

summer passage is an occasional unfinished 
sketch stuck up on a shelf in a fisherman's 
kitchen, or a smudge of paint on a bedroom 
wall. 

Those were very pleasant days, the last 
we spent at Martigues. We were no longer 
alone when we strolled by the canals where 
the brown nets huncr in lonor lines and the 
boats lay finely grouped, and where young 
girls in Rembrandtesque interiors and old 
men out in the sunshine, chanting about 
''pauv7^e Zozephine'' made or mended nets 
and sails. We were no longer alone when 
we walked toward the sunset, no longer 
alone when we drank our midday coffee at 

the Cascade, or J smoked his evening 

pipe in front of the hotel. A space was 
found for his stool at the Gacherel in the 
afternoons; Black followed Madame and me 
over the hills and under the pines. And we 
had made many other friends in the town: 
the builder of the mosque, who often con- 
sulted us about his dome and minarets — 
''what was the true Turkish form?" — the 
shopkeepers, who would lean over their 
counters and call me ''Ma Bella' when they 
asked what I wanted; the women who of- 



142 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

fered J a chair when he worked at their 

doors; the fishermen who invited us on their 
boats and into their kitchens. A httle longer 
and we should have been on intimate terms 
with all Martigues, even though we could 
not understand its language. 

But the summer painting season came to 
an end with September. One by one the 
helmets deserted the Gacherel and the Cas- 
cade; one by one the white umbrellas and 
fans disappeared from the shores of the lake. 
Gradually the studio litter was cleared from 
the hall of our hotel. 

"These gentlemen, the painters, go now," 
M. Bernard said, when he would have in- 
duced us to stay, "but others soon arrive for 
the winter. The house will be gay again." 

Only over at the Commerce one or two 
remained faithful, waiting for the coming of 
their master, M. Ziem. 

But we could not wait to see the great 
man nor to share the winter gaiety. We 
had had our summer in Paradise; the time 
had come to turn our faces northward from 
the sunshine of Martigues to the fog of 
London. 

E. R. P. 




A MARTIGAU MENDING NETS. 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 



VI 



Mais tout cela 71' est rien : la Joute — oiivre aux com- 
battaiits une arene plus large. 



IT was easy to see that It was a feast- 
day in Saint-Chamas — "Chamas the 
wealthy" — on the morning we arrived from 
Martigues. Along the main street, in cool 
shadow under the awnings of every shape 
and color that stretched over it from house 
to house, Japanese lanterns were strung 
up in long lines and many festoons about 
every cafe door ; the trash that only holi- 
day-makers buy was displayed lavishly in 
gaudy little booths under the arches of 
the high aqueduct that crosses the town ; 
a merry-go-round close by threatened at 
any moment to fill the place with the stir- 
ring sounds of its steam music ; while by 

the water-side — for Saint-Chamas strag- 

145 



146 



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THE WATER TOURNAMENT 147 

gles down from its cliff-dwellings to the 
shores of the Etang de Berre — one drum- 
mer was drumming vigorously, and half 
the town had gathered in the fierce ten 
o'clock sunlight to watch, first two boys, 
and then four men race each other in big 
black fishing-boats heavily ballasted with 
stones. 

And there was a holiday strength in the 
smell of absinthe that hung over the tcrwn 
toward noon, a holiday excellence in the 
breakfast we ate at the Croix Blanche,— 
and, for that matter, in the price we paid 
for it, — and a holiday leisure in the long 
time given to coffee afterward. Gentlemen 
in high hats and decorations, boys testing 
yellow, red, and green syrups, and work- 
ingmen in their Sunday best all sat in 
pleasant good-fellowship in the deep black 
shadows under the awnings. 

While we lounged with the rest in front 
of the principal cafe, the doors of the Hotel 
de Ville opposite opened, and two men 
brought out a pile of large square wooden 
shields painted white with a red or a blue 
bull's-eye in the center, and several heavy 
wooden lances decorated in the same col- 



148 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

ors and about eight or ten feet long, with 
three spikes at the end. All these were 
promptly carted off in the direction of the 
lake. 

There was no need to ask what they 
were for. We knew at once. They were 
the arms of the combatants in the coming 
jousts on the Etang de Berre. For it was 
really to see the jousts, the great event of 
the second day of the autumn feast, that 
we had driven over to Saint- Chamas. We 
had heard that tournaments were still held 
on Provencal waters, though exactly what 
they were we had not then discovered. We 
had not as yet read " Calendal," where, in 
the sixth canto, the description of the tilt- 
ing is as detailed as the story of the bull- 
baiting in ''Mireio." In '' Mireio " itself 
there is no reference to the Jotites, except 
when the little Andreloun, hodi?>t[ng of the 
immensity of Rhone River, says that 



Betwixt Camargue and Crau might holden be 
Right noble jousts! 

Several times that summer we had seen 
them announced on the irresistible program 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 



149 



of some great festival of the Midi. But 
hitherto we had always managed just to 
miss them. We had come to Cette too 
soon, to Martigues too late. And it is not 




UNDER THE AWNINGS. 



in every town by lake or water-side that 
they are given nowadays, however it may 
have been of old. Often the Provengal 
himself who lives in one of the more im- 
portant towns, in Avignon, Nimes, or Aries, 
has not seen them; for of all the great 



I50 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

Provengal cities, Marseilles, we were told, 
alone still holds its tournaments, though at 
rarer intervals as the years go on. But 
throughout Provence the fame of the jousts 
is great, and but few of the Provengal sports 
are in such high favor on the Etang de 
Berre, that great salt-water lake which is 
far wider than the stream that flows betwixt 
Camargue and Crau. The strong, finely 
built fishermen of Martigues excel in the 
tilting, and Saint-Chamas is so near that 
there are always a few to joust on its 
waters as on their own canals. 

Three was the hour announced for the 
tournament, and about half-past two the 
people began trooping down to the shore 
near the little harbor. While the men had 
been drinking their coffee, the women had 
been making their toilets, for they had not 
troubled to change their working-dress for 
the morning regatta. The jousts, though, 
were as worthy of all their bravest finery 
as any bull-fight. In Saint-Chamas they 
wear, with a coquetry all their own, the 
lovely Arlesian dress — the little Quaker- 
like shawl and fichu, the plain skirt, and 
the black ribbon wound about the little 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 151 

square of white lace for a cap. And very 
charming- they looked, the older women in 
black or brown or gray, the young girls in 
pink or blue or mauve, a ribbon tied in a 
coquettish bow just under their chins, their 
hair waved and curled over their pretty 
foreheads, and on their hands long Suede 



_f^ 









LEAVING THE HARBOR. 

gloves of the most modern shape, just to 
show that they knew well enough what the 
fashions in Paris were, and that it was 
choice alone that made them keep to one 
of the most becoming costumes ever in- 
vented for women. The jousting-ground, 
or rather water, was about a mile from the 
town, and we watched the groups of pretty 
girls, their dresses carefully lifted above 
stiff white petticoats, embarking in the big 



152 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

black boats waiting in the harbor. And 
other groups wandered down the hot, dusty 
road, past the cliffs which make a back- 
ground for the town, and in which houses 
have been burrowed out, doors and win- 
dows cut in the soft rock, even as they 
may have been by Gauls of old before a 
Greek had come to Marseilles or a Roman 
been seen in Saint-Chamas. But never did 
Gaul or Greek or Roman take part in a 
gayer scene than this starting for the jousts, 
the lake glittering in sunlight and dotted 
with black boats, the banks brilliant with 
color, and every one in fine holiday humor, 
all the merrier because of the good break- 
fast, the absinthe, and the coffee, and each 
woman's consciousness of looking her best. 
When we had seen the last boat-load of 
pretty girls rowed briskly away, we hurried 
down the white road to where the crowd 
had collected. Far on the other side of the 
lake was a circle of gray hills ; the black 
fishing-craft had anchored in a long line 
about half-way across ; and between it and 
the shore were the two boats — the two wa- 
ter steeds — of the knights of the tourna- 
ment. From each boat two long beams rose 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 



153 



in an inclined plane 
away out beyond the 
stern and above the water, 
and placed on them, at 
their extreme end, was a 
narrow board, on which 
presently stepped a man 
in shirt and breeches, 
with a big wooden shield 
strapped on and cover- 
ing him in front from the 
neck to the knees, and a 
wooden lance in his hand. 
There were twelve row- 
ers and twelve oars in 
each boat ; in the stern 
stood the steersman, his 
hand on the tiller ; and 
in the prow were trump- 
eter and drummer. 

At the first blast of the 
trumpet, the first roll of 
the drum, the two boats 
took up their position 
about two hundred yards 
apart. At the second, 
each competitor waving 



•'; ■ \ 






154 



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THE WATER TOURNAMENT 155 

his little banner as if victory were already his, 
the rowers dipped their oars together, pulled 
with all their might, the steersman encourag- 
ing them, and the drummer beating louder 
than ever, while the two boats drew nearer 
and nearer with ever increasing force, and 
an expectant silence fell upon all the waiting 
crowd. As the two bows crossed, the oars- 
men stopped rowing in order to steady the 
boats, which, however, by this time had got 




"A CRASH OF BOARDS." 



up such speed that they passed each other 
at a tremendous rate. At the moment of 
meeting, each of the combatants, Vv^ho had 
long since dropped their banners and lifted 
their lances, aimed at the bull's-eye on the 
other's shield. There was a crash of boards 
that could be heard a mile away, and, head 
over heels, shield and all, one man went 
into the water, and a great shout rose from 



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■ '{ \t~> 



m 



the black line of fishing-craft 
and from the crowded banks. 
Then in the blue lake a 
shield was seen floating in 
one direction, a man swim- 
ming vigorously in the other, 
and on the winning boat the 
victor stood high above the 
oarsmen, his arms extended, 
strong and athletic as a young 
Hercules. 

And now the smaller boats 
rowed up and down and in 
and out, and on land syrups 
were drunk at the cafes set 
up for the occasion, and the 
prettiest girls, arm in arm, 
strolled under the trees un- 
til the next combatant had 
buckled on his armor, and 
the trumpet and the drum 
once more heralded a com-^ 
ing combat. At once all the 
spectators hastened to their 
places, and the two boats 
rowed to the required dis- 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 



^S1 




tance. Again, at the 
second summons, oars- 
men pulled till bows 
crossed ; again lance 
clashed against shield 
in the duel of a second; 
and again a head and 
a board were seen on 

the surface of the water as the conqueror 
stood on high, waving his arms in triumph. 
All the afternoon, one after another, the 
fishermen tested their prowess, while the 
sun sank toward the opposite hills. There 



"LANCE CLASHED AGAINST 
SHIELD." 




THE VICTOR. 



was no want of variety in the tournament, 
though each meeting lasted only a moment 
and only one stroke with the lance could 



14 



158 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

be given in each combat. The constant 
movement of the boats, the water dancing 
beneath them, filled the lake with life and 
action. Sometimes before the two boats 
met, while rowers were pulling their hard- 
est, one of the champions would suddenly 
lose his balance and sit down on his lofty 




BOTH FELL TOGETHER. 



perch or drop into the water, and then it 
would all begin again ; or else both duellists, 
at the clash of their weapons, tumbled into 
the water together, amid loud splashing 
and laughter. Indeed, it seemed as if there 
were always three or four men swimming 
about in the lake or stepping, wet and drip-' 
ping, on the bank. And it was funny to 
see how indifferent everybody was to the 
vanquished in the tourney. As a rule, ab- 
surd though they always looked when they 
walked ashore, the water pouring off them, 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 159 

in delicious contrast to the people in their 
Sunday best, they passed unnoticed. Only 
once I heard a pretty girl call out after a 
stalwart young fisherman, '' Has it been 
raining where you came from?" A bed of 
the tall Provengal reeds just below served 
as dressing-room, and from behind it they 
would emerge again, spruce, and neat, and 
jaunty, with only their soaked hair and the 
bundle of wet clothes in one hand to bear 
witness to their late defeat and duckingf. 

Often one of the assailants tried to cheat. 
They have a sad reputation for cheating, 
the Martigaux, and must be watched closely. 
They do not always aim fair ; if they can, 
they hit below the board. We saw one case 
so flagrant that the whole audience pro- 
tested and there was a consultation of the 
umpires. The losing man, as he tumbled, 
turned, and, catching hold of his victorious 
opponent, pulled him over into the water 
after him. But nothing could be done un- 
til his victim had been reinstated on his 
high board and re-armed with shield and 
lance amid ringing cheers. 

It is a favorite fallacy that the French 
are without athletics, that they have no out- 



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door Sport worthy of the name. But no- 
where have I seen a finer game than this, 
or one that requires greater art, and skill, 
and strength. For it takes no little art for 
a man to balance himself on that narrow 













TtT?>, ii 



A QUESTION FOR THE UMPIRE. 



ledge, no little skill to hit the enemy's tar- 
get, no little strength to withstand the blow 
that crashes upon his shield. I am sure 
that the old tournament in the ring was not 
a better test of a man's valor and daring. 
The horses in heavy armor, carrying heav- 
ily armed knights, could never have ap- 
proached each other with the momentum 
of boats pulled by twelve men ; steel lance 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT i6i 

seldom struck steel breastplate with a 
mightier blow than that of wooden lance 
upon wooden shield. And the luckless 
knight scarcely ran more serious risk than 
the conquered fisherman who tumbles, with 
his clumsy shield still buckled to him, into 
the deep waters of the Etang de Berre. 
More than once the jousts, like the tourna- 
ments of yore, have ended with the death 
of the conquered. A slip of the lance, and 
its pointed prongs may strike into the 
throat of an opponent instead of into his 
shield, or may fall with a force that will 
bring his tilting in this world to a close 
for evermore. At Martigues they had told 
us of several such fatal accidents in their 
canals. But perhaps this very element of 
danger only doubles the people's pleasure 
in the jousts; for, with so many other things 
that have remained as an inheritance from 
their Roman ancestors, there is a certain 
cruelty, modified, it is true, in their sports. 
I do not believe that medieval tourna- 
ment ever made a loveHer or more brilliant 
pageant than these modern contests on the 
waters of Saint- Chamas. I know that on 
the Etang de Berre there is no flashing of 



i62 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

Steel or sheen of helmet and hauberk, no 
waving plumes or rustling silks ; to many 
the scant bathing costume of the comba- 
tants might seem but a burlesque substi- 
tute for knightly armor. But then, on the 
other hand, shirt and breeches and wide 
sash are not, as was the knight's steel rai- 
ment, a clumsy disguise for men who are 
Greek-like in virile beauty of form. No- 
thing could be finer than the amphitheater 
of low, gray hills, one far down to the right 
crowned with the walls and houses of Mi- 
ramas; nothing brighter or more glowing 
with color than the shores and the black 
boats in line in the center of the lake, 
crowded with fair women in Arlesian dress. 
It was at the hour of sunset, when all 
were going homeward, that the picture 
they made was loveliest to look upon. Of- 
ten the jousts last until the afterglow has 
faded, and they are not yet finished when 
darkness comes to separate the combatants^ 
The rules of the jousting, as far as we could 
learn, are simple enough. Each man tilts 
for himself alone ; if he overthrow three com- 
batants he becomes what is called a frere, 
and gives up his place, for the time being. 



THE WATER TOURNAMENT 163 

to the next man in the Hsts. Once he tum- 
bles, however, his chance is over. When 
all have met in combat, when all have fallen 
or stood their three trials, then the frh^es, 
if there be more than one, have a new in- 
ning. The length of time the jousts last 
depends, therefore, upon the number and 
skill of competitors. That afternoon at 
Saint- Chamas, again and again both fell 
together, so that the lists were exhausted 
more speedily than usual. And at the end 
there was not even one frere. The sun 
was setting behind the far hills when the 
last two men were rowed toward each other 
at the loud trumpet-call, and the last head 
was seen bobbing up and down in the lake. 
And then, in the golden light, every one 
set out for home : on the banks a long 
procession of men and women chattering 
and laughing with all the pleasant noise 
and exuberant gaiety of the Midi; on the 
water a long procession of boats, their la- 
teen sails raised,- — for a light breeze was 
now blowing, — and leading the way one of 
the big black barges with the twelve row- 
ers, the drummer drumming in the bow, 
and high above the stern the hero of the 



i64 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

jousting, erect and triumphant, waving a 
flag, his statuesque form silhouetted against 
the evening sky. 

When we got back to the town the cafes 
were already crowded, and lamps were be- 
ing lighted for the evening ball as we drove 
away in the starlight. 

E. R. P. 



THE MARIES' STORY 



VII 



For we are they men call the saints of Banx, 
The Maries of Judaea. 



THE saints Mistral sings in his ''Mireio" 
are Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome, and 
Mary Magdalen whose feast in May, in the 
little village which bears their name, is the 
greatest festival of Provence, and whose 
legend has been told again and again by 
Provengal poet and chronicler. They were 
three of the large company of holy men and 
women from Palestine, who were thrown 
by the Jews into a boat without sails or 
oars or food, and then set adrift upon the 
sea. But, so tell they the tale, an angel of 
the Lord was sent to them as pilot, and 
the Maries and Sarah, their servant, hold- 
ing their long robes like sails to the wind, 

came swiftly and safely to the shores of the 

167 



i68 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

land which it was their mission to convert 
to Christ. Once they disembarked upon the 
remote edge of the wide and desolate Ca- 
margue, they built an altar, and Maximin, 
one of their number, offered up the sacrifice 
of the mass, and where the water had been 
as salt as the sea, it now suddenly rose at 
their feet sweet and pure from a miraculous 
spring, a sign of the divine approval. 

Then they separated, each to go his or 
her own holy way, all save Mary Jacobe 
and Mary Salome, who, with Sarah, stayed 
and, building a cell near the altar, lived 
there the rest of their days. And some- 
times fishermen passed by that lonely coast, 
and to them the saintly women preached the 
true faith and won many converts to Christ. 
Sometimes from near Aries Trophimus came 
and administered the sacraments to his faith- 
ful sisters in the church. And the fame of the 
holiness of the three women went abroad, 
and when, after they had died, they were 
buried where they had lived, people jour- 
neyed from far and near to visit and pray 
at the tomb, and there many miracles were 
worked, so that their renown grew ever 
greater and greater. Before many years 




15 



I70 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

it had become a well-known place of pil- 
grimage (indeed, one of the most ancient 
in France), and a mighty church was built 
over their lowly altar, and many and strange 
were the wonders that were wrought. A 
little town grew up about the church, and 
nuns and monks raised their convents and 
monasteries close by, and as Rocamadour 
was honored in the far west of Languedoc, 
so was the shrine of the Saintes Maries 
beloved in Provence. 

Then evil days followed. Saracens and 
Danes laid waste the land, and if even Aries 
and Marseilles fell before their attacks, how 
could the remote village in the desert with- 
stand them ? And there were pirates, too, 
who infested Camarguan shores. And be- 
tween them all, by the tenth century nothing 
was left of Saintes- Maries but the little al- 
tar guarded by a hermit. But it fell out that 
one day William I., Count of Provence, hunt- 
ing in the Camargue, chanced upon the old 
forgotten shrine, and the hermit told him of 
its glory in the past ; and the Count's heart 
was touched, and he promised to restore it to 
its greatness. And the church which he built 
was strong and fortified with battlements and 



THE MARIES' STORY 171 

a tower — you can still see it on the sands to- 
day — and pirates were defied and peace once 
more reigned in the sacred spot. Then again 
pilgrims thronged to it fi-om every part of 
France. Houses and monasteries re-arose 
beneath the shadow of the church. Miracles 
were worked. And its prosperity returned, 
as William had promised. Four centuries 
later good King Rene found beneath the 
church the bones of the blessed women — by 
the sweet smell they gave forth they were 
known to be the remains of the Maries — 
and inclosed them in a richly adorned casket 
which was placed in the little airy chapel 
above the choir. It was then decreed that 
once every year, on the 25th of May, they 
should be lowered into the church, and 
showed to the faithful. The relics of St. 
Sarah were set in the crypt, where they re- 
ceived special honor from the Gipsies, to 
whose race she had belonged. As the cen- 
turies passed, the fame of the shrine in- 
creased, and there was no better loved place 
of pilgrimage throughout the land. 

And then again began the evil days. 
From the Reign of Terror the village by 
the sea could not escape. The church was. 



172 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

sacked, its shrine desecrated during the Rev- 
olution, and had not the cure concealed the 
sacred relics, they too must have perished 
when their casket was burned. After the 
Revolution, when quiet was restored, a new 
casket was made, the bones were again 
carried to their chapel, and the annual pil- 
grimage began with all the old fervor. 

Saintes-Maries is so out-of-the-way, so 
difficult to reach, that in this railroad age it 
may be said to have lost its old popularity, — 
that is, outside of the Midi. A thirty miles' 
drive across the broad plain of the Camargue 
and the absolute certainty of having to sleep 
out of doors seem no light matters to the pil- 
grim who can step from a railway-carriage into 
a big hotel at Lourdes. As a consequence 
Saintes-Maries, which has no other interest 
save that which the shrine gives it, receives 
but scanty mention in the guide-book, and to 
the average tourist is practically unknown. 
But throughout the south of France the de- 
votion to the Maries has never weakened. 
The people still flock to the May feast by 
hundreds and thousands. And because of the 
sincerity of the pilgrims and the absence of 
curious lookers-on, the festival has retained a 



THE MARIES' STORY 173 

character of which few reHgious ceremonies 
nowadays can boast. However, a railway is 
being built across the Camargue, and in a 
few years Saintes-Maries will have lost its 
character and have become as fashionable as 
Lourdes. 

E. R. P. 



THE MARIES' FEAST 



VIII 



. . . If a lizard, wolf, or horrid snake 
Ever should wound thee zvith its fangf^beiake 
Thyself foiihwith to the most holy saints, 
Who cure all ills and hearken all complaints. 



TEN years ago I made up my mind to 
go to Ober-Ammergau. But when 
1890 came nobody asked me. Instead, in 
the middle of May, I was in xA.rles, and 
on the 23d on my way to Saintes-Maries, 
for the feast Mistral sings in "Mireio." 

The road to the town crosses for thirty 
miles the Camargue, no longer a fearful 
desert, but one of the richest parts of 
France, a land which in the autumn reeks 
of wine. On this May morning there 
passed down the broad white highway an 
endless succession of long carts, each filled 

with sad and silent peasants or bright and 

175 



176 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

jolly Arlesiens, who were singing hymns 
as they went. Many of the people looked 
tired and sick and worn; in some wagons 
I saw blind men and cripples and helpless 
paralytics. 

As I jogged slowly on, I overtook wan- 
dering monks, gipsies, the Archbishop of 
Aix, and more and more cartloads of pil- 
grims. Finally, as the cultivation ceased 
and the \^ide salt marshes commenced, the 
town with the battlemented walls of its 
church came into sight, faintly outlined 
low down against the sea, and I looked 
to it as Mireio did on her weary journey: 

. . . She sees it loom at last in distance dim, 
She sees it grow on the horizon's rim, 
The saints' white tower across the billowy plain, 
Like vessel homeward bound upon the main. 

Tourists who go to Saintes-Maries al- 
ways describe it as a wretched, miserable 
collection of little hovels. It is, on the 
contrary, quite a flourishing fishing village, 
with two very decent hotels, a Mairie, 
and all the other belongings of a small 
French country town. The hotels usually 



THE MARIES' FEAST 177 

charge about four francs a day. But on 
the 23d, 24th, and 25th of May the land- 
lords get a hundred francs for a room 
alone from any one who has not brought 
his own tent or carriage, or has not a 
friend, and who objects to sleeping in the 
open. 

When I wandered into the church, I 
found that it had been completely trans- 
formed since I had last seen it. Galleries 
were erected around the interior, the side 
altars were boarded up, and the best places 
on the choir steps were covered with the 
cushions and pillows of the faithful, who in 
this manner reserve their seats for the 
three days' feast. A lay brother was busy 
drawing water from the holy well, salt all 
the year, but fresh during the fete, while 
a number of pilgrims were either drinking 
it or bottling it up and carrying it away. 
Every now and then a marvelously pictur- 
esque gipsy would mount from the lov/est 
chapel, for at Saintes- Maries 



altars and chapels three 
Built one upon the other, you may see, 



178 



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THE MARIES' FEAST 179 

and he would scratch some powder from 
the rock on which the Maries landed, and 
descend again to where 

beneath the ground, 
The dusky gipsies kneel, with awe profound 
Before Saint Sarah. 



From their subterranean shrine came the 
strano^est sinorinor; 



Dans un bateau sans cordage, 

An 7iauf7'age 
On vous exposa soudain j 
Mais de Dieu la providejice, 

E?i Provence, 
Vous fit trouver un chemin. 

Then, ''Vivejit les Saintes Maries T' they 
shouted, and their shouts echoed through 
the long, low barrel-vaulted church, almost 
a tunnel, and were repeated by the crowds 
kneeling about the choir. As strange as 
their singing were the black-shrouded fig- 
ures of the Romany chals, gathered toge- 
ther from no one knew wdiere, and now, 
on their knees, grouped around the tomb 
of their saint. Many and evil, one felt, 



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must have been the deeds which required 
all this devotion to be washed away. 

Throughout the afternoon people kept 
pouring into the town. Every foot of 
space around the church was filled with 




OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 



booths, from the stand for the sale of 
votive offerings managed by a priest to an 
equally flourishing gambling establishment 
presided over by a charming young lady. 



THE MARIES' FEAST 



I8l 



The gipsy women who were not engaged 
in praying sat by the door holding shells 
for alms, just as many a wandering brother 



¥ 






HI 



II. ^i 




THE CHURCH DOORa 



in the same place may have begged his 
way hundreds of years before. At the 
main door a small blind girl was stationed, 
and for the next three days the air rang 
with her ceaseless cry : ^' Messieurs-et-Mes- 



i6 



i82 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

dames- n OMblieZ' pas-la- pauvi'e- petife-aveugle- 
et-les- Saintes-Maries-ne-voiis-oublie7'ont-pasr 
To the saints themselves she never turned 
for the miracle for which so many were 
hoping, and once in a while it seemed to 
occur to the sacristan that hers was not 
the best example to encourage the belief of 
the faithful, and he would come and take 
her away. But he could never stop the 
endless flow of her petition, and before it 
was quite lost in the distance she would 
make her escape and find her way back 
again. She might have been the devil's 
own advocate. 

The cu7^e of the town was bustling about, 
looking after the Archbishop, greeting all 
the arriving clergy, and selling tickets for 
the good places in the church during the 
next two days. But though nearly worked 
to death, he was still smiling and amiable. 

The town by evening was completely en- 
compassed by a great camp of gipsies and 
peasants and farmers. The sun sank into 
the marshes, great camp-fires were lit, and 
then the mosquito was abroad in the land. 

I looked into the church again after dark. 
It was crowded. On the raised choir, where 



THE MARIES' FEAST 



183 




THE CHURCH AT NIGHT. 



i84 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

the high altar usually stands and where the 
relics were to descend on the morrow, lay 
the sick, votive candles casting a dim light 




" VIVENT LES SAINTES MARIES ! " 



upon their sad, thin faces, which stared out, 
white and ghastly, from the surrounding 
shadows. 

And, ah, what cries they lift! what vows they pay! 



THE MARIES' FEAST 185 

Those who could were chanting hymns in 
quavering voices, their friends taking up 
the chorus. Many lay still and silent. One 
boy seemed too feeble to do more than 
move a trembling, emaciated hand in time 
to the singing, and yet, every now and 
then, he would open wide his heavy eyes, 
and into his death-like face would come a 
look of longing, and, in a shrill voice that 
rose high above all the others, he would 
shriek, '' Vivent les Saiittes Maries!'' It 
was as if the grave had opened and the 
dead spoke. All night these weary watch- 
ers would lie there, waiting and hoping, 
and all the next day until the descent of 
the holy relics whose touch must surely 
heal them. 

While the faith in the saints was so strong 
around the shrine, the faith in Boulanger 
seemed equally great out in the open night; 
at least his march was sung as loud and as 
long as the hymns to the Maries — louder 
and longer in fact, for it kept me awake 
for hours. And so is all life divided between 
pain and pleasure. 

On the morning of the 24th, the great 
day, there were masses and sermons and 



1 86 



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practising of the choir within the church; 
there were bargaining and gambhng and 
preaching without. In the bhnding sunhght 
a steady stream of people kept winding 
down the single highroad into the town, 
while far off, at the mouth of the Little 
Rhone, steamers from Marseilles and Aries 
and Saint-Gilles unloaded their pilgrims, 
who, like Mireio, came wandering across 
the salt-marshes. 

By three o'clock the church was nearly 
full ; by four it was jammed. Around each 




PREACHING OUTSIDE THE CHURCH. 



THE MARIES' FEAST 187 

door outside was a great crowd; inside there 
was not an empty seat. The long ray of 
light which streamed in through the broken 
rose-window at the western end was mo- 
mentarily shut out by the people who had 
climbed even away up there. Every one 
in nave and gallery held a lighted candle, 
which twinkled and flickered and waved 
with the great volume of the singing. 
''We are in Heaven and the stars are 
under our feet," Gounod said when, one 
24th of May, he looked down upon the 
same scene. In the raised choir the sick 
still waited, their friends and a few priests 
still prayed and chanted. "The church 
was like a wind-swept wood " with the 
mighty voice of their supplication. 

Suddenly there was a cry of " They 
come ! " The people around the altar fell 
on their knees ; for from the airy chapel, 
high above the choir, a great double ark 
now hung suspended and then began to 
move downward, but almost imperceptibly. 
As slowly it came nearer, the sick and in- 
firm were raised toward it in the arms of the 
strong. Women fairly wrestled together, each 
seeking to be first to lay her hand upon the 



i88 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

holy relics. When it was a few feet from its 
resting-place, a solemn procession of white- 
robed clergy passed from the sacristy to the 
choir, and one priest, springing upon the al- 
tar, seized and kissed the relics. At the same 
moment he was surrounded by the sick, 
who, as if the longed-for miracle had been 
already worked, pushed and struggled to 
touch and be healed. The priest held the 
relics, and the people, pressing closer and 
closer, fell upon them, touching them with 
their hands, their eyes, and even their crip- 
pled limbs, kissing them passionately, clasp- 
ing them with frenzy. It seemed as if the 
priest's vestments must be torn to shreds, 
the relics broken and scattered in a thousand 
fragments, from the very fervor of the faith- 
ful. But finally the last kiss was given, the 
last petition uttered, the ark was set at rest 
upon the altar, the sick were placed all 
around it, and the chants rose louder and 
sweeter than ever. Vivent les Satnies 
Maries I 

Was any one cured ? No ; not yet could 
the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame arise 
and go their way. But there was not a 
single sick man or woman whose hope was 



THE MARIES' FEAST 189 

not Strong for another year. There is no 
faith hke this in Protestantism. 

Again all night the sick lay there, and 
the church was filled with ceaseless sinp-ine. 
Hymn followed hymn, the pious gipsies in 
the lower chapel singing one verse, the 
people in the church above responding with 
the next. And again all night an army of 
pilgrims was camped around the town. 

On the 25th, while the morning was still 
young, a long procession started from the 
church, headed by the different banners 
given by the towns of Provence. In sol- 
emn state the Archbishop of Aix, attended 
by clergy and acolytes, marched through 
the narrow streets, half in shadow, out into 
the open sunlight to the sea-shore. And 
next the sick and crippled came, some 
borne on mattresses, some hobbling on 
crutches, and others dragged along by their 
friends. Last of all a struggling crowd of 
gipsies carried aloft the rude figures of the 
two Maries in their little boat, and on 
every side devout pilgrims strove to kiss, 
or at least just touch, the holy bark. 
Across the sands to the sea they went, 
to the water's edge, and then right into 



190 



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■-■^y ^^m t MM" -'^ 




THE MARIES' FEAST 



191 



the water, gipsies, people, and even priests. 
For a moment the boat was set afloat 
upon the waves, there where at the dawn 
of Christianity the wind had driven the 



CiT'' 







IN THE WATER. 



saints from Jerusalem. And the gipsies 
again raised it aloft and waded to land; 
the procession, with banners waving, can- 
dles flickering dimly in the sunshine, hymns 
loudly chanted, turned again across the 
sands, through the shadowy streets, and 
brought back their beloved Maries. The 
sick were placed once more about the 
altar, and shouts of Vivent les Samtes 
Maries I echoed through the church until, 
toward evening, the ark rose slowly to 



192 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

its airy chapel, while the faithful watched 
it with loving eyes. 

But it had hardly reached its shrine 
when the church was empty. In ten min- 
utes every one had mounted cart, or dili- 
gence, or omnibus, and was leaving for 
home. In a couple of hours not a trace 
was to be seen of gipsy or Gentile. The 
pilgrims had fled as if from the plague, or 
as if they had entered for a race to Aries. 

So ended the feast of the Maries. 

For the people of the town there was a 
Grand Ball, a Grand Arrival of the Bulls, 
and a Grand Bull-Fight. But they were 
much less grand than in Aries. 

This, one of the last unexploited reli- 
gious festivals of the world, will have lost 
its character and simplicity before our 
book is printed. For my friend, the engi- 
neer, is at work on a railway. 



J. p. 







K 

!^ 
W 
H 

o 

H 

W 
en 




17 



LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 



IX 



To see what? Daudet's mill? For ex- 
ample, but you are drole when there 
are thousands of Daudets and millions of 
mills around here. Oh! that Daudet? I 
never knew he did well enough to have a 
mill. Why, he ran away from Nimes 
when he was eighteen, when he might 
have stayed and married his cousin Marie, 
whose father Jean now runs the hotel at 
Saint-Gilles. Quel coqitin ! Of course it is 
not as good a hotel as mine, but still it is 
quite good enough! And what sort of a 
mill has he got? An oil-mill or a wind- 
mill? My faith, how can I know? I never 
heard of it. You don't know? He put it 
in a book? How can you put a mill in a 
book? What? That nasty litde Alphonse 



195 



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Daudet wrote ' Tartarin de Tarascon ' ? O 
my God! I — we — we — we don't read 
that book out here. You had better go 
and ask his father-in-law at Fontvielle. He 
knows all about him. We don't look at 
such trash — insult — ah — !" and Madame 
Michel of the Hotel du Forum swept away 
in the gorgeous black silk which she always 
wears. 

Then I went over to the cafe, and I 
said to the lieutenant: "Look here, I want 
to go and hunt up Daudet's windmill. It 's 
somewhere out by Fontvielle." 

And then the lieutenant said : '' Because 
he says it is somewhere out by Font- 
vielle, is It that you suppose that it is by 
Fontvielle ? Thousand names of a million 
names of a name ! Me, I am, as you very 
well know, of Tarascon ; and because he 
said there was a Tartarin, does it therefore 
imply that all our noble city is filled with 
des Tartarin, des Bompard, des Bezuquet? 
We are serious, we are. Regard yourself 
Do you see that old man in the cart? He 
is the father oi L Arlesienne. That beast of 
a Daudet, why he came down here and that 



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LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 



197 




198 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

old man told him his history, and he put that 
history, just as he heard it, in a book, and 
he called that a story ! Why, you can go 
now, and if you could understand Provengal, 
you would hear the same thing from the old 
man." 

^So I walked out by the hill of Corde 
and under the Abbey of Montmajour, and, 
sure enough, there to the right, away in 
the distance, was the montagnette, white 
and powdery as a stone quarry, topped, 
not by one, but by three windmills. 

I found my way through the curious 
little streets of the town, every turn of 
which shows a picture of a lovely white 
wall, the green mosquito-netting over the 
door, the bird-cage close by it, the stately 
Roman matron sitting in the shade, to the 
open vine-draped inn-yard, at the front of 
which the townspeople drink beer on week- 
days, and from the back go to see bull- 
fights on Sunday ; and I asked the waiter 
if he knew which was the windmill of 
Daudet. 

No ; he was new. But he thought that 
the gentleman over there, who had lived 
here all his life, would be most happy to 



/ LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 199 

/ do himself the honor of havine a elass of 
beer with me, and he would tell me all 
about it. 

Knew Daudet? Of course he did. He 
was like a father to him. "Why, in Paris 
me and Daudet-s-bes-pals. But down 
here Daudet-s-disho^rashed himshelf — writes 
books, and we donsh speak-s-any more." 

I asked a passing- sei^gent de ville — or 
I suppose I should say de village — if 
he knew where the property of Daudet's 
father-in-law was. 

''But," he said, "do you suppose I know 
the father-in-law of a man I never heard 
of in my life? What fools these Eng- 
lish are ! " 

I, however, only took courage, and mak- 
ing my way through the most picturesque 
of Proven9al towns, in the direction in 
which I knew the windmills must be, I 
came out on a wilderness of market-gardens, 
then to a low stony series of gorse-covered 
mounds, which led up to the three forsaken 
and sailless mills — three red-topped, white 
pepper-pots dominating the landscape. I 
climbed up to them, a walk of two minutes. 
It must be here. 



200 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

A pretty pine-wood, glittering in sun- 
light, spread before me to the foot of the 
hillside. The horizon was cut by the bold 
crests of the Alpilles. Behind, like islands 
in the vast sea of La Crau, were Montma- 
jour and Aries, and, beyond, the Rhone 
losing itself in the Camargue which, in its 
turn, was lost in the horizon, all this lovely 
Provencal country living in the light. But 
from the chateau, not away off as I had 
imagined it would be, leaving the old mill not 
alone, isolated and solitary on its height, — 
a perfect place for work, — but within con- 
venient sound of the dinner-bell, came 
voices and laughter. Here must live the 
old Provengal family, no less original and 
characteristic than their house hidden 
among the pines. Doubtless the mother, 
a vraie bourgeoise de campagne, the Mayor, 
the Consul, the Notary, the Advocate, her 
four sons, would welcome me, and make, 
me, too, take my place in the circle around 
the old mother. Doubtless I should hear 
them call her chere Mama^t, tenderly and 
respectfully. 

I did not jump the low stone wall and 
make my way through the dense under- 



LE MOULIN DE DAUDET 201 

growth, but went around by the front 
gate, though it was quite a Uttle walk. 

Instead of the beautiful old chateau, a 
brand-new sample of the Provencal jerry- 
builder's art reared itself proudly among 
the pines, which, on that side, had been 
ruthlessly cut away. No one was about. 
The windows were tight-shut. I made 
my way to the back, only to interrupt the 
naive amusements of a portier in undress, 
several lady's-maids, and some grooms, 
all of whom, evidently, had just arrived 
from Paris. 

'^ Ladies and gentlemen," said I in my 
politest French, "could you tell me by 
chance which is the miU of Daudet?" 

"Sir," said one of them, dropping a copy 
of "Le Petit Journal," "you of course refer 
to the son-in-law of our esteemed master 
— to the illustrious Alphonse Daudet?" 

"Ladies and gentlemen," said I, "it is 
so." And we bowed. "And further, could 
you tell me in which one of the three 
windmills I see before me on the neigh- 
boring hill the illustrious son-in-law of your 
excellent master was pleased to take up his 
habitation ? " 



202 PLAY IN PROVENCE 

''Is it possible that this foreigner has 
come here for the purpose of insulting us, 
by saying that our master Daudet lives 
in a windmill ? Blue death ! Is it not 
that Daudet may inhabit the whole of 
this splendid palace ? And why should 
he live in a dirty windmill? Has he not 
six rooms here? Am I not his valet? 
Shall I turn the dogs on him, or shall I 
thrash him myself? " 

I saw that these people were not in a 
fit condition to be reasoned with, and I 
discontinued my search for le motili7i de 
Daudet, 

J. p. 



